Craig Sawyers

You know what they say - massive head, massive hat

A belated happy birthday!

Happy birthday - have a great one!

Really sorry to hear that sad news. RIP John.

Dreadful though this is, it was alas inevitable. The Hawaiian island chain was all formed volcanically, with continental drift moving successive islands away from the vent. Once they drift away, the volcano produces a new island from the ocean floor - and that is the island that is active - as above. Etc. etc. So the better/safer place to live is any of the other of the Hawaiian islands. But even so, my heart goes out to all those whose lives have been ruined, and who have lost absolutely all their possessions.

Shocking that these parts were obsoleted. The number of truly low-noise bipolars (or matched pairs) is shrinking. All for the convenience of the customer company.

Yeah - I use Tidal HiFi too. But that is a fragile technology. Digital streaming services can go bust, are prone to cyber crime and warfare, or new technologies based on human embedded augmented intelligence (maybe 10 years off) or similar might cause them to go phut as a business. But you know something really funny - I have all this digital shit - and now 80% of my listening is to vinyl.

I ripped all mine to a NAS drive, so I can instantly choose what I want. Took a month or more, using dbpoweramp https://www.dbpoweramp.com/ . But I have no intention of getting rid of the CD's. Audio is littered with defunct media - cartridge, cassette, VHS, Betamax, quadraphonic (in two varieties) and others. So I keep the CD's, and CD player(s) too in the event that (a) the NAS goes phut (the horror, the horror) or (b) the whole digital storage paradigm is superseded.

A good run indeed - RIP Uncle Bob.

Happy birthday! Have a spectacular one.......

Wow. That is no age to go. RIP Margot

Case ready pierced. All the connectors. Two circuit boards and all the bits. Pass's choice of switcher supply. $317 seems like a bargain for what you *physically* get. Now yes - the distortion looks lousy and power is low. But Pass's philosophy is that linear distortion is not the be all and end all. And the distortion increases politely with power level. I have no idea what it will sound like - but if you go for it, you'll need efficient speakers to make sense of a handful of watts. (note that the power supply is uni-polar, so there is an output capacitor of 3300uF. That is something that I have not seen since the 1960's in things like the Quad 303, and is a typically quirky Pass thing)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Shelly! Steve reckoned cake or pi - but I guess you might have preferred -exp(i.pi)

Apart from that it would dissolve the Good Friday Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement which was the basis for a lasting peace following decades of sectarian violence. Merging Ireland would renege on this, and sectarianism would take hold again, really opening Pandora's Box. It is little wonder that the EU is concerned about the border in Ireland.

Well N Ireland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU 56% to 44%., so maybe giving N to S is perhaps not a bad idea.....

Nuff said....

Meanwhile in the UK And here is typical Brexit stupidity. One of the main issues is the Irish border - because Southern Ireland will be in the EU, and Northern Ireland, post Brexit, won't. I'm sure that the typical Brit thinks of a border crossing with some sort of customs post. But there are 300 road crossings along the border. That is more than every road that links the whole EU with neighboring countries. There are farms and houses which straddle the border (so you come in your front door in post Brexit UK, then walk into your garden and it is in the EU). And that does not count many hundreds of paths that cross the border. So the whole thing becomes smuggler's paradise. Insanity.

Ikea introduce a turntable and sound/light system https://www.insidehook.com/nation/ikea-teenage-engineering-frekvens-audio-lighting-equipment

That is what NEDCC do, but they use imaging of the groove pattern, and then recover the audio from that. This is an archival process for recordings which could be damaged by regular playing. Called IRENE https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene

Happy birthday!

They look like a real bargain!

SME prices have massively increased since it was aquired by Cadence. That is for two reasons - first they were too cheap and SME were sinking, and second they did sales from SME themselves, so tied up staff organising sales; they now only sell via a distribution channel with their margin added. It will be very interesting to see what they have planned for Garrard. They also acquire Loricraft, who apart from manufacturing 401 and 301 spares also manufactured their own Garrard-inspired 501 and 601 turntables. The 601 from Loricraft is/was UKP7557 plus shipping. Plus arm and cartridge of course http://www.garrard501.com/garrard601.html

"Thy knotted and combined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand an end like quills upon the fretful porpentine" That's what you need before listening

Ah yes - that is British stoicism! Big time. It is not so surprising that the audience is largely older people though if you know that Chichester is in the middle of a section of the British South Coast where people tend to go after they retire. We regularly go to Chichester (not much more than an hour drive), and have seen some stunning plays there. Most recently to see Ian McKellern playing King Lear in the 300-seat Minerva. Going back a few years the amazing production of Hamlet in the same tiny theatre with Patrick Stewart. After Chichester, that went to the West End, then Broadway, and then made into a film. This is from the film version, and is by far the best "Is this a dagger..." soliloquy I've seen.