Leaderboard

We survived that in the mid 70's, and got to our 39th wedding anniversary yesterday.

Eleanor and the kids are away, so I've been building a brutal recording desk. All rough 1x6 lumber, logged and milled here on the farm and exposed to the weather for way too long. When I move it downstairs I'll put the keyboard on a tray under the desktop. I think the monitor risers might be too high but aside from that I'm really happy with how it's turning out.

Done! Aside from connecting everything and cleaning up the unholy mess that's all around it and then finally recording some music. The monitor risers are actually at the perfect height.

I got routine blood test results. My triglyceride levels were 489 mg/dl, right before I became a vegetarian. Two years later, it's at 160. Still a little higher than I'd like (high triglyceride levels run in the family; for instance, my mother weighs a hundred and twenty pounds and has as pretty low calorie diet, but has a triglyceride level over three hundred, despite statins), but I think that's a pretty darned good result. Everything else in the lipid panel were squarely in the "normal" zone. Fasting blood sugar is under 100 (everybody on both sides of my family over the age of 30 has diabetes except for me and my mother, so I think this is a triumph!), my resting pulse has fallen under 75 (again, still higher than I want, but it was over 100 two years ago). Blood pressure has been good despite reducing the amount of medication I take. I think I'm doing pretty darned well.

I think joehpj may have more. That's where I got mine. Mine's up and running and doing long listening tests, finally enjoyable. Details to finish, along with getting the left channel opt servo to work. Sounds glorious. Thanks to Kevin and Spritzer. These electrostatic amps that Kevin designs and Birgir fine tunes are just an incredible learning resource. They are damn near fool proof and bullet proof. And drive my SR-009'with TOTL SQ. Also, kudos to all the experienced members here on Head-Case for the elevated discussion. Now back to my listening. Nanci Griffith is singing to me in my living room.

Almost three years later, I'm finally working on this again. This is such an epic project as well...it is certifiable. The front panel is finished and mounted to the top plate. So very busy... Power knob on the left, volume on the right. Four 50K pots in the upper left hand corner to adjust the output stage offset and balance. Two 5K pots in the lower right hand corner with all the test points. Those cost a bloody fortune but were the only ones to fit in those holes. All 10 turn wire wound Bourns pots as well. TKD 4CP601 volume control as it fit the front panel perfectly. Not sure what to do with that gaping hole but might have a MA logo etched onto some plexiglass and illuminate it. Here it is even busier. The amplifier is mostly ready, just need to wire up all the test points and the 5K balance pots. Bias supply for the HE90 socket is in place but how I'm going to mate this to the power supply I just don't know. It has to go on the bottom of the chassis with two fairly large transformers and two PSU boards. It's a little bit like building a ship in a bottle... The PSU is up next so wish me luck.

I photograph like an old homeless guy looking for a handout (gray shirt/hands in pockets) I shudder every time I catch a glimpse of me! Since I hit 60, I just don't give a shit?

Not so much cooking but homegrown tomatoes and basil with fresh mozzarella

No pictures of progress since my focus was otherwise occupied, but I tried my hand a ribs yesterday. Everyone was quite please with the results.

I went to the thrift store and there was nothing cool there until I saw this on a bottom shelf... They were asking 20$ with stickers that they were unsure if it worked so perfect for me. This is a PSU for Mackie mixing desks with a super long umbilical cable which I have removed. Heavy fucker too... at least 10kg. Healthy output current so the idea came into my head to use it as a bench supply should it work. After some cleaning it looked ok with no bad caps or any visible damage. Just look at that monster of a transformer. So I turned it on and well it worked so this was next: No current limiting here but hey, this one was cheap so who cares. Also I can test large class A amps with this beast.

Bought some boxes and packing tape to start the moving process. Fuck I hate moving but it'll be worth it once I get moved in. Lots of room for HCers!

Ate at one of Stephanie Izard's restaurants tonight with Debbie, two of her sisters and her brother-in-law. Restaurant is Girl and the Goat. Chef Izard is a James Beard award winner and Iron Chef. All of the following were shared plates and we ate too fast to get pics of the onion focaccia with house made giardinera and house made Caesar dressing. Roasted beet salad Wood fired oysters Squash blossom crab Rangoon (best we'd ever had) Goat chorizo flatbread Roasted shishito peppers Beef tongue with masa chips ( dedicated to my Dad who loved beef tongue. Tonight's was tender and delicious) Tempura soft shell crab with corn Escargot ravioli. So bloody delicious. Pig Face! (It's under the egg. And fucking awesome!) Blueberry bourbon baba Caramel corn and malt balls. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tomatoes are finally really rolling

So my birthday present is finally here, the SRM-T8000. I just quickly plucked it into my computer rig with the Denafrips Ares as a source: Here I can compare directly against the Carbon CC and the as yet unrealesed new KGSSHV, budget edition. Think of this one as the 727 if Stax had any sense. Anyway, back to the T8000. The packaging is classic Stax and no complaints there. I do have some complaints about the casework though, the front panel looks awesome but who decided what to do with the rest of it? Seriously that sparckly silver paint is just horrible. Reminds me of some super cheap Chinese amps. Yeah... not great. I had a quick peek inside to change the voltage to 240V and the procedure in the other thread is correct. This is the same old Stax color setup with a small change (one connector is reversed) to try and trick people. Some notes about the interior: -The person who designed this needs to find something else to do as not a single fuck was given as to how this thing is put together. Boards on top of boards with no reason to be there. I love the volume control where you have three PCB's (one blank) sitting on top of the pot. WHY!!!??? All of this could have been done on the back panel... Also wires everywhere. Bloody Stax living in the 70's... -The volume control (which they try to hide) is a plain old Alps RK27. It's almost impossible to see but I moved the "shield" a bit and there was the classic Alps sticker. For 6K$ I'd expect more... -The PSU is certainly unregulated and the same as in the 727/007t. Same 220uf/400V Elna caps. -Looks like the tubes are running at DC 6.3V. 4700uf/10V filter caps but I'll measure it later. -The amp is certainly just a 727 with the feedback in place and tube input stage. Ohhh and for the tube rollers, not a chance to roll this amp so better just like the stock EH tubes. Either that or somebody builds a special tester for this amp and sells tubes for it. Now for some impressions. I'm a bit pressed for time now so I just grabbed the first headphones that I saw. These are my own DIY units and I've been using them a lot lately as I've been tuning them. The drivers are old SR-X Mk3 units so similar sound signature, the best highs you can find with glorious midrange and extended but super tight bass. I'll go into the living room and grab some of the others over the weekend. Now what can I say about the amp...well I expected more. The top end is the worst part, it's rather uneven and unrefined. Grating even and slightly shouty in nature. Seems to be the Stax house sound these days but it also makes me dread trying the amp with 009's and L700's. I'm listening as I type this and I cringe from time to time, the upper midrange and treble is so bad. The phones are sure as shit not to blame... Now the midrange is ok minus the glare but it also lacks the expansive nature that the really powerful amps give it. It feels closed in... The bass...well it is nothing to write about really. Nowhere near T2/Carbon levels of power but this really isn't the best set to try for bass performance. I'll dig out the modded 007Mk2's to test that when I have time. Here it is all a bit flat and lifeless. Conclusion time I guess, at least for now. There are things I like about this amp, the front panel is pretty and it comes with properly wired XLR sockets but there is a lot I don't like. I fucking hate the blue power led...Stax should be green or orange. On top of everything above I also think this thing is horribly overpriced as it is just a fixed 727 which isn't a particularly great amp to begin with. To charge 6k$ for this...is just not cool. More listening to come... -

Beyti kabab... With family

At long last, I cased my KGSSHV - my first foray into Kevin's Wonderful World of DIY ES Headphone Amps. Although its glory has been over-shadowed by the HV Carbon and the Grounded Grid alike, the KGSSHV is really a damned fine sounding amp in its own right to my ears especially when set up to run at higher output current. There are many versions of KGSSHV out there starting from the on-board heatsink version that runs around 5mA output current to the later off-board versions. This one runs at a toasty 15mA and raised VAS current and is powered by the same GRHV/GRLV universal PSU I use also for my Carbon, Blue Hawaii and Grounded Grid.

raising the plate voltage to 150 puts the tube in a more linear transconducance region. use stn9360 or 2sa1486 and there is plenty of clearance. in other news, going to 24V instead of 15V for the jfet input based versions of everything also makes the front end amplifier slightly more linear

On a lighter and less important note: Yesterday I put back together a door frame that had been ripped apart when a visitor of ours tried to close a screen door that was locked open. The day before that I managed to fix the CD drawer on my Linn Classik that has been broken for years. All it was was a simple loose rubber belt internal to the mechanism. Some belt conditioner fixed it right up. Very glad because it seemed to be a custom transport. Yay for working beloved electronics and saving money.

These will hit the smoker around 7 tomorrow morning. Which were cut from this.

Churrasco. Brazilian bbk. Diaphragm flank steak, known here as entranha, or fraldinha do diafragma.

Sweet and spicy flank steak. Quick pic. More red

So, after a 6 hour slow cook, decent results for a first try. I had to mess with temp quite a bit, and eventually removed the TTT and continued with just the slow n sear. We also discovered that St. Louis ribs may not have been the best choice. But in the end we had good bark, a decent smoke ring and smoke flavor. Not a bad first outing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Last night.. The rest of the room is coming together (booze) And testing.. w/ Frank Dean Peter And Da Count Sound is doing okay.. lots of tweeking to do.

@cetoole was visiting, so we made a slightly absurd amp using parts from the bin. I had originally milled the chassis with the intention of building a 6E5P triode -> 4P1L triode SE; then realized that would be a bit awkward, since the 6E5P is rated for higher dissipation than the 4P1L. I may have also forgotten that 4P1L filaments need power supplies when I bought my power transformer, too, so that was a non-starter. Not wanting to leave two unused holes in the panel, the obvious solution was to throw some 0C3s in. Glow tubes are pretty; it follows that any amp that uses them will sound better than one that does not. A normal person might be tempted to string them in series and use them as a reference for a regulator. Instead, each channel gets its own shunt regulator with a voltage reference made up of a zener stacked on top of the glow tube, and a SiC shunt device. R7 ensures that the tube strikes. And the current source (which is nothing inspired) The regulator terminates into the cathode rather than ground, keeping the cathode regulator out of the output current loop. It also forces the PNP to run at constant current regardless of cathode current, meaning its impedance will also be constant. It sounds like a single ended triode (i.e. terrible). But it was an awfully fun build. Slightly tempted to parafeed or otherwise upgrade the iron. It's surprisingly silent when nothing is playing.

I found the perfect ride for @grawk

I'm officially old. Building this today kicked my ass.

A fantastic weekend for me, 2 nights of celebrations for my 35th High School reunion, capped off by a day at the Lowell Folk Festival today. My friend Christine was able to make both nights, it was great. And in keeping with (maybe not hot, and certainly not lesbian) drunk chicks, one of my old HS friends is basically an alcoholic. And now her humorous cynicism and sarcasm flowed over the edge. And "joking" physical advances were fairly deftly deflected.....

Normal cholesterol today! Dropped my total cholesterol from 242 in April to 189 today. Yeah baby! Celebrating with ribs and brisket. [emoji106]

Job interview next Wednesday. Good look? That was me from early May. 10 pounds lighter, now, but everything still fits about the same (I guess I've lost 20 pounds in the belly, but gained 10 pounds of muscle in the chest from boxing). I figure a three piece suit, boots, and a knit tie is too much, but It's me: I'm probably too much regardless.

Here's a few of the Amplifer Case interior. Signal input is not final. Assembled with a TDK 4CP-2500 volume control from s recent GB. The ALPS RK50 is waiting for me have a machine shop make me an adapter plate (already designed). Wire from the PCBs to the STAX jack is not final (too short). Longer solid silver/gold teflon wire on order. Also, to do: devise a permanent Star/Chassis Ground connection. A better solution is needed, The photo of with the top plate installed is from an earlier trial fitting. Shown with Svetlana Winged C EL-34 (2000 vintage). Even on a short listen, they sounded like "Meh...." Now up and running with a matched quad of JJ 6CA7s. Highly preferred, this amp sings now. Thanks for the tip Whitigir! Also to note, in the umbilical with the heater wires tightly twisted and all the other wires scramble wound, there is zero, zip, nada, NO hum. Deathly quiet.

I came to my hometown for 2 days. Family united. They say hello to head-case

Technics 1200GR. Oh my lawdy...

last year was really bad for tomatoes. This year however they are coming out of my ears picture was about 2 weeks ago, now they are coming in faster than we can eat them

Hi Al! I'm back in America and back on forum duty. Missed everyone, but mostly you.

I must go, my ribeyes need me. Idea is roughly 110 on low/smoke and then reverse sear super hot up to 130. Let's see how it goes.

Made a whatever I could find in the pantry curry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok I'm listening to my new "Fat Bottom Girls" I recognize that the sound is much better than the EL34. I had never used 6CA7 before but I'm very surprised.

Got half squatted for reps by a hot drunk lesbian personal trainer, then invited two Korean chicks who are on vacation to my apt for a nice homecooked seafood dinner. One even asked for the recipe.

Lunch today... Pecan encrusted Red Snapper, heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, Buffalo mozzarella w/ balsamic vinaigrette. It was yummy!

Snack, Salad, Tartare, Frites, Burger, and Meringue

Of course Mikey has the highest proof listening room in Washington State!

New Shape - new Method. Testing out Batards (oval) - and baking with steam (Using cast iron and lava rocks to create a lot of steam - like a sauna) Results are coming along... This is an Oat flour/Spelt Flour mix - at 72% hydration - steamed for first 20 minutes of bake (total 55 minutes) on baking stone. Second loaf Super crispy.... So that is all nice and such..... But even the great mikeymad baker makes mistakes as well (learning opportunities) During my first steam last week - I used a new grain and way too high of hydration (water in loaf). So it spread out fast, as soon as it hit the stone. -- ran off the sides and back of the stone as it 'baked' I baked them all the way ... And ended up with tasty alien spaceships!!

Like x 1,000,000. Looks awesome. I am just having a boring burger. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Larry Carlton Quartet full concert at the Festival de Jazz de Vitoria, performed on July 12th this year

Very chill

En route into the city to have some dinner with Bryan and Jeff. I brought the mini van so you know shit gonna get turnt up.

The first month is always about determining compatibility. So at least in that regard you successfully found the answer to that. Glad that you can look at it as an adventure of a type. I don't really believe that there is a certain person for everyone but I do believe that there are many people out there that we can live a fulfilling life with. Some more fulfilling than others. I think it's all about how you read the many clues that inevitably creep through the mask. And determine whether you can live with what you learn. All of this advice comes from one who has never had a successful relationship and as such should be taken with a giant grain of salt.

I had a small breakdown yesterday. LP helped me through some teenage drugs problems I had. Fucking hurts like hell even after so many years. I like to believe that I would be different today had he not shared his own pain through their music.