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Another Grounded Grid lives. Have been listening to it for about a week. Powered by the same GRHV/GRLV PSU I use to power my KGSSHV, Carbon and Blue Hawaii. 400VDC rails and 20mA plate current. Using EH 6CA7 - the true beam tetrode not pentode. Runs much cooler than the Blue Hawaii. A tough job remains to drill the holes on the top plate. This is one fine sounding amp!

Well I've reflowed a bunch of joints (probably more than was needed). Since then I haven't had problems with oscillation, excessive offset, etc. The sporadic noise seems to have gone as well, but of course just as I say that it'll come back to spite me. Anyway, thanks for the help. I think I can stop fucking with it and just use it to listen to music.

Had a graduation party yesterday for Andrew, a good chunk of the family came. Karen and I had most of it catered, and the result was quite stress-free for us, allowing us to enjoy family. Also found out that my dad - 82 years old - just fully retired this past week from his dentistry practice! My dad and oldest brother Scott, and Andrew & me:

Fired up the vinyl rig after two years - damn I forgot just how great vinyl can be Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got the LV supplies done now. All good 😊

Marched in the Knoxville pride parade with my family and some local libertarians.

Picked up a turkey this afternoon for my secretary whose husband had an aneurysm on Monday. First thing off of the Rec Tec. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Open baffles do things box speakers don't. Of course they need extensive EQ, but one of the things you notice if you are used to box speakers is they can sound bass-shy. If you are used to open baffles, or electrostatics, of planar magnetics (Like Magnaplanar) there are no surpises. The bass is there in the right proportion to the rest of the music with no overhang, and sounds tight and fast. And open baffles interact with the room in a completely different way, exciting far fewer resonances. Well you can buy a kit, or even buy one already built. Or you can do what I did - buy two sheets of Baltic Birch and build them from scratch. Then hot hide glue veneer them, and French polish them. Parts which are not veneered I made from a Rosewood called Cocobolo, and the feet were made from Goncalo Alves.

I set up a phone interview for a job I badly want, for next Wednesday. University IT director position, 5 minute commute, excellent pay and benefits. and for once it's a job where people on my reference list are known quantities, and respected ones. I applied Tuesday, so it seems that they are moving fairly quickly.

Like the fact that I can both not run and not bike on it. Definitely a value multiplier.

Some progress. The terrible unbalance was due to an unconnected small tube pin. During the milling process the CNC machine drilled a couple of unauthorized holes which I completely forgot when soldering the board. When corrected the amplifier works. The offset is done by opto servo and it works as supposed. Balance control is also done by servo and I've no trimmer. I've same balance servo here as in my amplifiers with LSK389 input and there it works without any problem. With the tube input you can probably expect more differences between the sides. First tube I tried gave 260 V unbalance (offset worked, so +130V and -130V) and the second tube gave 30V unbalance. The balance servo (in current version) is not capable to make it balanced if the tube isn't enough matched. The input is supplied by +100V/-15 and all components there are surface mounted. Current source is 01N100D/LT1021. GG to the left and tube input GG to the right.

Fuck it. This. Is. HEAD-CASE! Maxxed out it is.

Had a brief respite from man's inhumanity to man by taking a walk among the giant Sequoia's in Calaveras Big Tree State Park.

Food Truck Cajun food. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Summer time...

Put on the shim and FSA seatpost. Now this bike rides as nicely as I remember the DeSalvo rolling. Shaved a few ounces off from the tree trunk of the seat post I took off as well. Somehow managed to shave 8 seconds off my PR on my neighborhood climb so those few ounces must have been some really heavy ounces. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Met John (jvlgato) for lunch today, down by the VA. Great as always to see him, and had a nice chat (and lunch)! We'll have to do it again!

Lowered the resistor value at OP27 output. Now both offset and balance are in the mV area. Very happy with the outcome.

Celebrated Father's Day with my parents in the blazing inferno. The car said 114 and may have been more accurate. I can see Stretch getting in a whole heap of trouble up here on a regular basis real soon.

A few more pics of the Grounded Grid with the top cover on, including a side-by-side with the Blue Hawaii built using the same chassis. Got a set of tube socket rings coming. Will decide if to use them when I have them in hand. Drilled a few more holes on both the top and bottom plate of the Blue Hawaii to help ventilation inside the chassis and hope it'll run cooler. Will likely do the same for the GG.

I built this yesterday. There's some noise that I need to track down, but otherwise it seems to work. The offset adjusts to within a few volts using the balance pot; the offset pot doesn't seem to do much. Offset drifts a bit and I'm not sure I'm adjusting it right. Is there some way to disable the servo?

happy it works. now for a version with tubes as the constant current sources And a cherub has just informed me a t8000 is headed my way I like retirement. going to a hamfest tomorrow to see what I can find to update some of my very antique test gear

i also went to tokyo recently, and the used record shopping was even better then i had hoped for! so many shops everywhere! well stocked, organized and best of all, properly graded! surprisingly, i didn't find much (old) japanese music though, which was a shame, as i really wanted some Taeko Ohnuki records (i already have them on cd, but i want vinyl too!) i also bought a AT33 mono, as it was so cheap down there.

Thanks Al. It was Gail's initiative and my work. Carved up and ready to go. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The chassis belonged to a Grounded Grid, now transformed to something similar with tube input. Need to make a top plate else I think it’s finished. Ordered 50 pieces of ceramic discs. Got them in 50 plastic bags…..

You still can't have my Bud Lite. ..... But only because I really like you and wouldn't let you do that to yourself.

Thanks! I posted about this "universal" PSU in the Carbon thread I think. It's a GRHV tuned for 400VDC rails and a GRLV tuned for 18VDC rails. It also has 2 sets of 6.3vac/4A secondaries from the Antek AS3T325 transformer (300VA, 325v/450mA x 2 and 6.3v/4A x 2). I put a switch and thermistors on the 325v secondaries to function as a manual B+ delay. I originally had one resistor in series with each of the two 6.3vac secondaries to lower the filament supply to the EL34 but have removed them a few weeks ago when I realized I was already losing a few 10th of volts between the tranny and the amp board. I bought a 7-pin female chassis socket I intend to replace the male one I am using now but have not gotten around to do it. I don't have small children in the house to worry about but I have been known to do stupid things that only 5 years old would do (according to my wife).

Went to my sister's to assemble a Hampstead corner cabinet. What a shock. The instructions were clear and all of the parts were there. So it went together pretty easily.

Hah. Just realized the easiest way to get Jeff to buy new wheels: "Hey Jeff, I have those Shimano R500 wheels on my bike too!" On another​ note, been a bike heavy day today. Had a swap meet and bought 40$ of stuff for 30$, then went and ride with Xavier and one of good friends and their family. **BRENT**

Welcome @Cattler! Welcome to head-case. Hope everything is chill with you. Do you meditate regularly? I think its pretty cool to do so. I look forward to it now. For a fun and easy tex-mex meal, cut up some chicken breast into cubes and saute in the pan with salt and pepper. They'll cook quick. Then cut up an avocado or two, add salsa and tortilla chips of your choice and VOILA, you have a tasty and reasonably healthy dinner. Works great for leftovers except for avocados which turn into a goddamn horror show 20 minutes after you cut them open. What is the deal with that? @Cattler lets get to work on an avocado that stays good for longer. Thanks for your time.

You wot mate? Continuing the farewell breakfast tour -- the usual at Côte. Mmm, boudin noir ...

Yardbird (yesterday). Half chicken, brisket biscuits, and smoked pulled chicken salad. and a blackberry lemonade (with turkey) to wash it down

Lance is fencing Russian fencers this week and he will fence two Korean national team fencers next week along with having private coaching with the Russian and Italian coaches. Fun times, I just hope it makes a difference in Salt Lake City. On the plus side I am getting much better at ordering food and wine in Italian.

My "designed and tested on deployment" Marine Raider watch finally arrived. Nice packaging and a couple of strap options. I think this will be a great Ti beater for the summer when I do not want to wear the other beaters. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

¿Que?

Our new dart board came with a lake house attached.... It may need the HC treatment. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

This

Fuuuuuck that. Not coming.

Well, vacation is over and my GG lives. Turned out to be a partially dead lsk389 on one channel and a cold solder joint on the other, combined with too high tail resistor values on both. Obviously not my finest hour stuffing those boards . Anyway, the amp sounds really really good, so many thanks to KG and all other contributors for this great circuit! Now to find some exotic and good looking EL-34's to top it off...

Maybe they had to make it faster so owners could more quickly get it through the neighborhood and into the garage before neighbors noticed what a stupid looking car they drive.

Can you put that in a high altitude extended holding for a while? Need to save fuel. Almost finished the layout for the other channel. This is the first board layout I’ve done from schematic in the software. By doing it this way I hopefully can avoid mistakes in the process of copy, mirror from the right channel board to the left … Thanks Kevin, Kerry and others for new ideas that I can exploit.

Father's Day steak dinner

some pictures that others posted from the parade that seemed relevant:

YMMV but me experience with using the Metic Halo UNL - 8 was positive compared to analog phono pre amps in that sub $2k range. Not that some units like Eddie Current's or some vintage units didn't have their appeal but on the whole the MetricHalo held it's ground and then some. I'd like to get back to a tube based phono pre at some stage of my life but for now digital RIAA the mic pre amps in the MH unit are fine. Be careful getting into the rabbit hole of needle drops as I lost countless saturdays to recording, tick and pop erasing, track separation and tagging. Fun but time consuming

Crumbs, Aracacha (or peruvian parsnip) pure, Tzatziki, capers and leek deglaze, and a cunk of meat

My general advice to anyone is to get the highest end model, whether you need it or not.

Stuff like this is why I find electric cars and their rapid development so fascinating. They are going all out in solving the charge issues (hello high voltage) and the performance is just incredible. I've been toying with the idea of picking up a used Nissan Leaf as they cost nothing to run here, the electricity is so cheap. There are also new seat rails available which means I can fit in the bloody thing...

Good stuff HS. I feel about 2% more American just for having read this!