Craig Sawyers

Someone with a room with no acoustic common sense is a duff-user

Someone with very deep pockets, a very hazy grip on room acoustics, and the most uncomfortable listening chair I've seen (right of centre )

This seems to be my day for anecdotes. About a year ago we went to see a play in Chichester with Richard Wilson in it. Now Wilson was recovering from the effects of a heart attack, that came on so quickly some months earlier that he keeled over in the street and struck his head. He recovered from the heart attack, but was left with some mild brain damage which rendered him incapable of memorizing lines. A dreadful affliction for an actor. So since the part was a headmaster, he used various tricks to have his lines written down so he could read them. Even so, at one stage he had to remember a few lines and temporarily dried until he hauled the lines out of his fritzed brain. He is so professional that even though he was still in recovery he insisted on honoring his commitment to play the part. Anyway a good friend of Wilson is Matt Lucas, something we found out because Lucas and his partner/husband were sitting directly behind us in the theatre, so we overheard their conversation, and the background to Wilson's difficulty.

Better than the fate of a friend of mine, Paddy Glenny, who emigrated from the UK to start a brewery in Nelson in British Columbia, Canada. Along with his brewing activities he trained as a park ranger. As part of his responsibilities he used to paint ball grislies so that their movements could be tracked. He described this crazy process of getting down wind from this apex predator, and trying to get it with three different colours. After which put live rounds in the chambers in case the bear charged. He also packed a magnum hand gun, again as a back stop. Next thing he got gored by a juvenile black bear across the buttocks, that crashed into the clearing when he was eating lunch. It also stomped his satellite phone. So he had a very nervous 20 mile hike out leaving a blood trail. He survived that. At then, somewhat later he just plain disappeared. His remains were never found, the assumption being that a grisly eventually got him, and any remains were finished off by a host of other predators.

RIP Christopher Tolkien.

Wow - nature red in tooth and claw. Or beak and talons. Oh well, startling though it was, the hawk at least got its lunch.

All that stuff was designed when Laurie Fincham was the technical guru. He's still alive an kicking - for 20 years at THX in California http://www.aes.org/events/146/presenters/?ID=8239 He once explained to me that the now classic B139 driver was designed that way to avoid purchase tax (the product tax that preceded VAT). The legislation defined a loudspeaker as circular or elliptical. So Fincham designed the B139 as a circular driver split down the middle and two straight bits joining them. So it was neither circular nor elliptical. Mystical properties are associated with that driver, but its genesis was much more pragmatic - ie financial! The B139 is now being remanufactured https://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/falcon-b139-8-ohm-kef-b139-sp1044-replacement-woofer.html . Seems like a lot of money for one, but looking back at the price in the 70's and correcting for inflation, the remanufactured price is only 20% higher in real terms.

That was really interesting, Dusty - thanks for posting that link!

KEF stands for Kent Engineering Foundry. Before they started manufacturing speakers, they made farm machinery, crop sprayers etc. Who would have thunk, looking at those gorgeous (and expensive) floorstanders.

How did I miss this? A belated Happy Birthday Grahame!

I use a Mahlkonig Vario, which is a 43mm flat burr grinder with a hopper feed. It is about the same price as the Niche Zero. So what would I buy now? Interesting question. The downside with the Niche Zero is the need to weigh the beans for a single grind, which is a longer process (but I listen the majority of the time to vinyl, so I'm no stranger to ritual). The upside is the gorgeous design, and zero retention. And, dare I say, British! The upside of the Vario is the hopper feed and very comprehensive range of grind settings. It is also compact enough to fit under the cupboards over my work surface. The downside is that it has coffee retention.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Well, the rabbit hole opened. I bought one of these https://gamages.london/watch/limited-edition-moon-phase-automatic/?attribute_pa_color=rose&variation_id=2510 But I bought it brand new, boxed and 5 year guaranteed from an auction house for £95 (plus 20% seller premium plus 20% VAT for £138). Still a helluva bargain for a mechanical watch. Bit of a beast though at 43mm diameter and 15mm thick.

Absolutely. The first investment needs to be a good ceramic burr grinder. When I bought mine, I mentioned in this thread that it would take lots of cups of coffee to pay back the price, and Dusty said "No - only one cup!". Sage words. It goes way back. In Nevil Shute's 1950 novel "A town called Alice", the opening is in a Gentleman's Club in London. One guy is bemoaning the poor quality of post War coffee, and saying that they don't understand that real coffee ought to be made less than 10 minutes after grinding the beans. When I'm just making coffee for me, I use the Aeropress. When I'm making for me and my wife, or when we have guests, I use a French Press (I have two sizes).