Craig Sawyers

Well, it'll come as no surprise that I understood every word of that. It wasn't particulary heavy dialect either. True Geordie phrases include the memorable "Divvent cowp yer creels bonny lad" and "you lookin' for a cleb roond the lugs?"

The accent you are recalling (my accent) is called Geordie. It is actually a bastardised ancient Norwegian/Swedish from the dark ages Viking invaders. There are whole chunks of Geordie that bear a strong link to modern Scandinavian languages. Remarkably persistent dialect that has its roots back over a thousand years. It is no wonder you have trouble with it

An excellent semi-fact-based series. The Yorkshire Ripper was a real guy Peter Sutcliffe, who went on a serial killing spree of prosititues and other women from 1975 to 1980. Serving life in Broadmoor. The corrupt developer played by Bean was also a familiar thing in the North of England (where I come from) at around that time. The most famous pair were T. Dan Smith (Head of Newcastle city Council) and John Poulson (the developer/architect). Vast bribes (we're talking many hundreds of thousands - worth perhaps ten million today) passed to ensure a contract for building a vast mall in the city centre of Newcastle (Eldon Square). T Dan Smith was the invited speaker at one of my school's academic achievement prize events - I remember him calling making Newcastle the "Brasilia of the North" - he was arrested less than a year later. T Dan Smith was also a central character in another excellent series called "Our Friends in the North" made in 1996. If you enjoyed Red Riding, it is worth looking this one out. Just as dark.

Well, OK - I've now got the BH sorted, and truly awesome it is too. Takes a long time to warm up and get on-song - but what a song! Clear that the limitation is the source (TT CD64) and phones (lamdas). Now on to repair and get the T2 working...

Blimey - the Pikes Peak! For those not in the know, this is like no other marathon on earth. Well over 6000 vertical feet (actually over 7700 feet of ascent), with 2000 feet in the last three miles, involving rock scrambling. Best time for the full marthon (ie up the Peak and back down) is around 3h30m. Which is about my best marathon time **on the flat**. Most times are way, way longer than that. But the real ball breaker is that it starts at well over 6000 feet - so the Peak itself is at 14,000 feet - and oxygen starvation becomes a major issue. One of the planet's ultimate challenges. So hats off Tyrion!

Got my Blue Hawaii up and running. Awesome.

I think that is probably the problem with sensing the inside of the block. LV is one of the half dozen wood species with a density greater than water - LV is around 1.3. It is also full of a type of gum which both smells like strong perfume when you work it, and makes it self lubricating (it was used for propellor bearings in steam ships for that reason). So it is very homogeneous, which makes it difficult to sense internal structure.

There is no spoon

Lucked out and inherited a large and hefty box of flight grade components that were originally used for the JET-X satellite. Date coded 1991, and past their flight grade expiry date. Nicely stocked up the resistor and capacitor racking, and there is still the diodes, transistors and IC's to work through.

I say using intuition and making a cut is the only way to go. You win some, you lose some - but it is always exciting. I think Kevin got a win.

Doh! Been there, done that - in a remote and deserted car park in January in near darkness having been for a long run, soaked with sweat. Eventually found someone with a cell phone who called rescue for me. I recovered from near hypothermia in the rescue truck while their guy took nearly half an hour to break into my car - it was not easy.

I moved off TKD because there is not a good electrical connection between the shaft and collar. The net effect is that you get a crackling or whooshing sound as you turn the shaft. Mine was so bad that I returned it for a replacement - which was exactly the same. Eventually bought a DACT from Justin, which is a sonic source of joy. Somewhere lurking aound in the head case threads is talk of dismantling the TKD and putting silver loaded grease on the shaft to get a better connection..... My TKD sits in the spares box, and might possibly be used in some other, non-audio project eventually. An expensive addition to the spares box....

The Zen-like cabinetmaking books by Krenov talk about the risks of cutting into a piece of wood. Even with his legendary intuition of reading a plank, he would often get it wrong. At one stage he almost paralysed himself with the fear of cutting or planing incorrectly and missing that perfect effect. That is the risk and the joy of working with wood.

Only on Head Case

That, Kevin, looks outstanding!

Studying engineering *and* practicing for a major international musician competetion? I'd say the two are mutually exclusive if you plan on sleeping at all. Either that or you will do both badly and end up extremely fed up with yourself.

Spent the weekend loading a van with daughter's stuff, driving to Woodford (E. London), cleaning the capets in her flat, and moving everything in. Thus starts the next phase as a 1 year MA in Acting for TV, Film and Radio.

The 2SC3381's are used as current mirrors. For these to work properly there needs to be good matching and thermal tracking between Vbe drops. The best chance of that is to use a dual device with both transistors on a single piece of silicon.

Sounds like a pretty good day to me

Depends on what your budget is. I've recently gone to using a TentLabs CD player, which sounds completely stunning - a real giant killer. It is nominally a DIY player (!) but is actually supplied as completed electronics modules, requiring screwing together into the casework and wiring up. Link is here Tentlabs DIY CD player . I actually got mine in a known not-working condition as payment in lieu for some business advice. Turned out to be a weakness in a power supply regulator, and current production now incorporates my fix. In any case, Tent repaired the unit free of charge without quibble (5 year warranty). If you don't feel comfortable building the unit, you can pay more and take delivery of a built one. The caveat is that if your budget is the sort of price for a used CDP-2, the Tent is going to be a very expensive option.

Been there, done that, with a Georgian front (ca 1760)/Victorian extension (ca 1870) around 20 years ago. It was a helluva job, but worthwhile. Fortunately we did not have a foundation problem. But the wall could be bowing for several reasons - it either may not be structurally well connected to the rest of the building, or the foundation might be poor. The first is relatively cheap, because the wall can be pinned back onto the rest of the structure. The foundation is much more of a biggy, and it depends on why it is sagging. If the ground is poor (boggy etc), there is not much you can do. but if it is just that the building was not properly founded it can be underpinned, but think major expense. Here in the UK you see lots of old properties in which bowing walls have been corrected by bolting them back together. Basically a spreader plate on opposite walls, and a very long metal rod with threaded ends that passes through the space under the floorboards at first floor level. Repeat as necessary along the wall. Also used in the US - there is a thread about it here a bulging brick wall & star-shaped bolts! - Old House Forum - GardenWeb

Think of it as a completely floating (ie not necessarily ground referenced) zenerless ideal voltage source. So very low noise, because high voltage zeners (in fact anything >6.2V) operates in avalanche mode, not pure zener, and is an excellent wide-band noise generator. Basic idea shown in the T2 schematic, which can be found with a bit of searching on the T2 thread. 6.2V mentioned above actually has a relevance to zener calibration standard voltage sources. Because this voltage is the transition between zener action and avalanche, and they have opposite temp coeffs. So 6.2-ish volts is exceptionally temperature insensitive over a narrow range. So such sources have zeners which are designed with the insensitivity at room temperature (20C), or at an elevated oven temperature (30C or so). All of which is completely irrelevant to any high voltage design useful for electrostatic phones.

Bitter sweet - I recognise that feeling. Bloody well done!

Jeez. Looks dreadful. Glad you and yours are safe.

That, sir, has left me totally helpless with laughter!