CarlSeibert

Just got an email. I won one of those oscillating tools that does everything in the Woodcraft Pirate Chest Giveaway, which is one of those silly affairs that draw a crowd of geeks (yes, me and a hudred others) to a store in a strip mall to try a sheet metal key in a padlock. And of course buy something they didn't really need while there, which in my case was a $55 dust collector hood. So nobody's key worked for the oscillating gizmo, apparently. Makes my day. A little certified good luck does wonders. Yippie!

When I was a little kid, the journalism market was full of diverse voices, although few of them were of any quality. From there, we somehow evolved into an infection of orthodoxy served up by monopolists. So I should think Fox News is great, right? A step back toward our roots as a vital force in society or something? No. They're too big and too powerful to have shabby quality as an excuse. They go beyond spin. They plain, flat make stuff up and pawn it off as journalism. They apparently think their customers are outright idiots. Which is somehow unsettling for those of us who are struggling to maintain some relevance in an industry that has become synonymous with "existential crisis". So there. rant and an existential crisis all in one. Oh, and I'll vote for the notion that "average people" who try to behave a little better to feel better about themselves aren't even close to "average" (at least by the standard of "average" that thirty years in this business has provided me) and just might be taking the first little step to being ready if historical dumb luck requires a "great person" in their neighborhood.

More of a cat person myself.... Naw. Not even gonna think it..........

I have single-drivers (modified FE127e's in Metronomes) in my den and like them. It's an itty bitty room, though - about 10 by 12 by however tall a typical South Florida room is.

Hi Miguel, I've never heard Fritz' speakers, but I talked to him at length when I was contemplating buying/building my first set of full rangers. He seemed to be an extraordinarily straightforward and kind fellow.

Happy sniping. Bear in mind that while on FleaBay any bid earlier than two minutes out is just an invitation for some ding-a-ling to run up the price, Audiogon is a no-snipe zone. A bid there in the last five minutes automatically extends the auction. Man was I embarrassed.

Congratulations. I hope the cake got shot before it got eaten. Back in the day, when I shot food a lot, the staff always considered it good form if the stylist made deserts practically (so they could be eaten). If there was cake involved, the hungry sharks would already be schooling up as the film was coming out of the processor.

Well, I can't say they're Pink Pythons of Perfection, but they're pink pythons of pretty good at least. Inspired by the guy whose link Pars posted, they're 2 meters long and no Teflon tube was harmed in their building, apart from a couple of half-inch lengths for the center wire at the plugs, which are my favorite ersatz WBTs from Parts Express. My contribution is to use cotton thread to bind the silver conductor to the rope, which seems a decent idea and allows you to build in the cotton spirit, without any PTFE touching the conductors. I actually used PTFE tape first and then the thread, mostly because I wasn't comfortable with the thread yet and I didn't want the things unraveling on me. The cotton jacket is jersey t-shirt material, which turns out to be a pain in the butt to work with. The edges curl up and you have the devil's own time getting it to lay flat. I'll use woven cotton next time. The curly edges made for a spiral bump down the cable, but two layers of Teflon wound over the cotton pulled it all down to a more or less uniform shape. So how does it sound? It trounced the rather decent commercial cable it replaced. A significant hardness was replaced by better resolution and a more relaxed musicality. Transients were better. Dynamics were better. Generally speaking, it was mo' better. Break in behavior is not the same as I've had on other silver cables I've made. Normally, they're pretty disappointing for the first few minutes (all midrange, no extension and no subtlety) then they pop into focus in less than an hour and don't really change any more. These don't seem to be changing much. Either they aren't going to change at all or they'll do it slowly, more like what you're supposed to expect from silver cables. We'll see. For it's intended purpose, it's a success. But that doesn't answer the real question, which is "is the cotton better, worse, or the same as the tubes?". Given that this is the longest cable in the den system, it's not as easy as I would like to work out a way to compare. If I take it out of its place, then I have to put the inferior old cable back in. It's a sticky wicket. I'll contrive something and report back. (I'll upload the file of the picture of the thread binding so it will stay permanently with the post.)

Happy Birthday!

The braid arrived today. Many thanks, morphsci! You were most generous. There's more here than I need. I feel a power cord coming on. If the size works out, it too will sport a fancy braid sheath. I made the cores for the shielded cables this weekend. When the rest of the parts arrive and I get them together, I'll post.

Interesting. Of course ten grand is lot of money for a turntable, or more specifically, more than I have for one. But not wearing out your records and not having to buy new carts every whenever make it seem more reasonable.

It's some sort inverse-Darwinian worker selection scheme to mess with people who just want to goods and services they paid for without any drama. Got a call from the bank today. It seems some piece of shit script kiddie breached one of my credit cards. That would be the same credit card that I had to cancel and replace not more than two months ago because the bank itself managed to let about a gillion accounts get compromised. OK. That's annoying. But the lady in the fraud department was one of those people who confuse numbers - who think one number and say another. What pointy-haired genius decided that the person who can't associate numbers and the words for them should work in a credit card department, on the freaking phone! I was on the phone for an hour. I tried my best to confirm and re-confirm everything I said, but if your credit card is a couple of digits off mine and stops working today..........

Have you - or anybody we know - actually heard one of these? I remember thinking when it came out that it was a fascinating idea. Then I never heard another word about it.

Floods suck. I made the all important and politically more attractive left channel run of that set of interconnects today.

Been on vacation for a couple of days now. Check that. It's been three. Installed T-track in my router fence. Fell asleep with my headphones on (twice) Made half a set of interconnects (the right channel) Listened to some records. Dined on golden (abyssal) crabs. Lost track of time. -- Doug - is that zebrawood?

So sad.

Hmmm. I see a link that says "View all subscribed threads". It looks like the one in the full size version. When I follow it, I get the same list of subscribed threads - which is all of them as best I can tell - and the same option "View all subscribed threads". Click the link again and the same list is returned. This with Opera on a Windows Mobile 6.1 device. Stand by. I'll try Internet Exploder and see how it behaves. .......... same behavior in IE.

It would be cool if you could filter subscribed threads for those with new messages in them, too. But no biggie.

Ah. Er. Mia culpa.

About four feet of 1/2". It's for half meter/two foot-ish ICs, so it doesn't have to be one continuous piece.

Some person of questionable socialization kicked one of our video reporters today. Of course, we don't mention the vile threats this guy made against the reporter's mother or his behavior in general, so when the video is on YouTube people will think that he's a normal person and that our guy must have been terribly rude and deserved the boot. We are our own worst enemies. The Miami police are "investigating". Funny, scary and sad all at once.

Vicki- Ivan is adorable.

These will be my first attempt at shielded. The plan is to do basically the IC that has worked for me before - solid core silver in Teflon spaghetti around cotton core (7/32 or thereabouts) - some cotton spacing material, then braided shield with maybe foil if I feel ambitious and adjust to make it fit in an arbitrary size sheath. 1/2" seems big enough to fit it all in, although I suspect not with as much space between the conductors and shield as I originally fantasized, and small enough to fit on jacks at one inch centers. How I'll taper down to fit in the back of my RCAs...well, I haven't quite figured that part out yet. Cool. Thanks.

That they might want to sell? I'm about to place an order at Parts Connexion, but they don't carry nylon sheath. I don't want to place an order at Take Five for four feet of braid (I'd probably end up buying a set of WBT plugs or something, too.) I need about 4 feet of 1/2 inch (this stuff: Take Five Audio - Canada's Online Source For High-End Audio, Parts and Accessories - Nylon Expandable Cable Sleeve ) for a half meter pair of interconnects. It doesn't have to black. Some other color or a cool pattern would be fine (or better) If anybody needs something from Parts Connexion that's not worth the shipping, holler and I'll add it to my order.

Very. But why? And how on earth did you know to look?