CarlSeibert

Can do. Just let me know before the meet if you'll make it.

Most excellent, CJ. You gonna have them at Mike's meet? Or maybe we should do a Fonken vs Metronome FE127e shoot out.....

Congratulations! Our cat Enigma adopted us pretty much the same way. She jumped on Bonnie's back in the garden. Dusty's right. It's a very good idea to avoid accidentally teaching him that your hands are toys, lest he get excited and bite you too hard. Kittens tend to bite or grab everything with their mouths. He needs to learn to do it g-e-n-t-l-y. Kitten claws are razor sharp, too. They climb all over you. Then they start to lose their balance and grab on with their claws. No human gets through kittenhood with losing a little blood. We started trimming Jazz's claws quite early and it took her a longer time to learn to retract her claws when she kneads then it did for Toots, for whom we started trimming claws later. I have no idea of there was really a cause and effect relationship. (The critter will knead you as he would his mother to start the flow of milk. It's adorable, but a little tough on clothes and skin with claws extended.) Considering the amount of cat handling expertise required to do it without causing a row (and more human bloodshed) I might not rush the claw trimming. Once you have food and a litterbox in hand, it sounds like your next stop should really be the vet. He or she should have a lot of good advice. Then enjoy the love. The little guy chose you. He'll be your friend for life.

I actually have an Ace, which I haven't yet mounted. But people around here seem to love 'em. A record cleaning machine like that Brazilian one is a very do-able DIY. I built mine when I lived in a little apartment (no shop, but I had a darkroom!) It uses a Rat Shack project box as the case and has the vacuum lips underneath the record, a la Nitty Gritty. (I sized it to use Nitty Gritty replacement felts.) Maybe $30~50 in parts at today's prices. If I was to do it again, I'd do the vacuum wand on top and use a Pelican case. A gearmotor to turn the record might be a nice touch, too. Anything in the Pelican line can be bought very reasonably from GMPCS, the satellite phone outfit, BTW.

My 840s are broken in. They changed a lot in break in. I don't remember a period when the upper mids were too prominent, but rather the opposite. I suspect that the ESW9s are actually better, though. They ought to be, given the price difference. We can compare at some point. But the two cans also serve somewhat different purposes. The Shures can take some pretty rough treatment. The 9s may be the sturdiest headphones ever made, but I can't imagine ever treating them badly to find out.

Speaking of Oz, has anybody invited him?

Indeed. Happy belated Birthday!

Shoulda ordered those transformers before I started building the box. The nice fellow at CineMag says they're out and they have to build some. And it didn't sound like a Plitron wind-everything-to-order-so-it's-no-biggie-and-only-takes-a-couple-days kind of thing.

I find the notion interesting as I (and some others) have noticed slightly better/different performance from Squeezeboxes, depending in whether the compressed file is decoded in the Squeezebox or on the server. Given that the SB's processor is an itty bitty little thing, it's an intriguing point. Since I have no convenient way of setting up a test in my own rig, I'll just wait till somebody does and lets us all know. In the meantime, I just set the work to be done server-side and I don't worry much about it.

Interesting old threads. I built a box to house a pair of SUTs in and somehow have not gotten around to ordering the the transformers. I think I'll call and order a pair of Cinemags tomorrow morning. Then I'll be able to use low/medium output coils in my den/headphone rig.

Count your blessings. For one of my friends, it's a normal but kinda bad flu. The other is one seriously hurting puppy.

I've ridden in those hills. That ain't my house to the Lake Worth pier and back. They have real hills up there. Good going Chris.

Indeed it was. It got off to a bit of a slow start. I think everybody, probably including Cohen himself, was a little nervous after the unpleasantness in Spain. But once some momentum was achieved, it was a truly awesome show. Best sound I've ever heard in an arena show ever, as well. It sounded like well done sound for a rock or pop act in a concert hall if that makes any sense. Bank Atlantic Center is a hockey arena. That's an accomplishment. People were going to the sound booth and congratulating the sound men after the show.

Leonard Cohen. At intermission now. Most excellent so far. It's the show that's on the Live in London record.

Called my doctor's office to find out about swine flu (none of this "H1N1" stuff since we found out the pork industry's flacks were pushing the media to use it. All flu is "H1 something". It's swine flu, dammit. Oh sorry. Off my meds. Where was I?) Oh yeah. they'll know if they have any vax for non- kids, oh, along about the end of flu season. What a system. Two of my friends have swine flu now. It truly sucks.

No prob.

Wayne/Matt? I trust the HE5s will be at Mike's meet? If they happen to make their way to Gene's, I'd love to hear about how they do on the WA6SE. Otherwise, my 6 SE or Gene's or both will likely be at the meet.

I was too busy being a smartass in the post where I was supposed to be saying that I would attend to communicate properly. I'll be there.

Wait a minute. You mean that tree in the front yard I secured against the wind with zip ties.... I shouldn't have done that? Oh fudge. Oh, and I'm in for the meet, for sure.

Indeed. "Can they be driven with [whatever amp we might have]?" is the question for me.

When Enigma used to go outside and get in fights - which she often lost - it seemed that antibiotics worked really fast to clear up the inevitable infection. That's the good news. The bad news was that it's really important to finish the whole course of pills, which means more opportunity for fantastic kitty-vs-pill mayhem. I think they understand that we take care of them. On some level, I think they appreciate the concern that drives us to commit our various tortures like pills and claw trimming.

Hmmm. I'm more or less in wait and see, er, hear mode, too. Although I really liked them at CanJam. They reminded me of my planar speakers. Maybe. How much money is in my PayPal account?.......

Hifiman HE-5 Orthodynamic Headphones - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

Makes my day whining about having to go back to work after vacation sound a lot more attractive. Hmmm, whilst walking back from FourBucks this evening, I saw two cars sideswipe each other. They were civilized enough to pull off instead of chasing each other a few laps around downtown. Maybe it's just the back-from-vacation cynicism, but I found that surprising. (I guess technically speaking, one driver was doing the sideswiping and the other was minding his/her own business.) You just got back from vacation, too, right?

Mixed and somehow manipulated concrete for what is turning out to be the most over-wrought small speaker stands in history. Concrete is strange stuff.