Craig Sawyers

I was as that tour in Birmingham UK. Absolutely superb from beginning to end. So glad I saw him perform on stage. If you don't have the DVD of that concert rush out and buy it.

I've got a permanent slight buzzing sound in my left ear. You think you've got problems?

Condolences Knucks and RIP. It is a really special thing for someone born in 1917 to get to 100. It turns out right now that over a quarter of people currently under 16 will get to 100 or more (UK statistic), so it will become a much more frequent thing in coming years.

Cheesus!

Well pardon me - since I have failed to answer the question, read this http://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/tutorials/MT-019.pdf

It depends on what parameters are important. One thing is noise. Simple balanced input stage based generally have (a) different input impedance for balanced differential, +, - and common mode and (b) Based on 10k resistors produce about -105dBu from a low impedance drive. Although that is pretty quiet and good enough for many, with a single ended stage there is no series resistance and it is fairly straightforward to get -120dBu either with a low noise op-amp or discrete.. You *can* design balanced stages with the same noise performance as unbalanced, by using parallel unity gain buffers driving parallel low feedback resistance balanced stages. But you end up with a lot of op-amps and board real estate to achieve that. The THAT balanced input stages and drivers (Designed and patented by Bill Whitlock of Jensen) are interesting. Their input stage common mode rejection, and distortion, is superb, which is the main aim of the chip topology, but internal resistances are around 14k which again compromises noise performance. It is horses for courses, really.

I'm with you there Kevin. The sheer mechanical beauty of an A700 is the thing that gets me going. But it would collect dust. Mind you, I know of at least one long-term vinyl junkie who is so paranoid about wear that he puts them onto tape at the first play and then stores the vinyl never to be played again. To me that just defeats the whole point of the vinyl thing.

I started watching that wondering what relevance an R2R D to A converter had to a tape machine. Then the penny dropped R2R was Reel to Reel. Duur.......

Black Gate caps have not been available for a decade or so. Rubycon used to make them for Jelmax; I think there is graphite powder in there. Rubycon decided that their business model, in making capacitors by the billion did not match making small numbers of boutique parts for the audio industry, and pulled the plug. Actually they pulled it twice. First time, they were persuaded to continue. That lasted a year or two, and then goodnight Vienna. So any NOS Blackgate caps out there have been sat on a shelf for at least ten years. And if they are recent, they are fakes. And dontcha just love vertically mounted resistors. I haven't seen that sort of thing since TV's in the 1970's.

The real tragedy is that so far he has not immortalised himself with a Darwin Award.

Woke up to this. Very unusual in the South of the UK

You're welcome any time for a cold one or two.

What a complete and total shithead. Even his fatuous analysis of how much tax went into paying for the emergency services misses the point that while they were dealing with the microwave fuckwit they were not available to deal with a real emergency. Like a house fire, or major road traffic accident. What an asshole. I apologise profusely for him being British.

Congratulations Jacob - awesome! That is quite a month - married, and a new job. Mind you, when I saw Oxford, I thought "That'll be a hell of a commute"

That'll get watched today

This is actually about a week old news, but last Wednesday night I was up in the UK Dark Peak district doing night navigation practice. The temperature was -5C with a strong wind, so about -15C with wind chill. This was with a trainer called Chris from Beyond the Edge http://www.beyondtheedge.co.uk/ . I drove up in the late morning, and we started the exercise actually in the light, at about 3pm. But by 5pm it was dark, and we continued on until after 9pm. This is all to do with navigation strategy and accuracy with a map and compass between places set by Chris basically in the middle of nowhere. Chris, is ex Army and climbs big stuff - he summitted a 6000m peak in the Himalayas earlier this year http://www.beyondtheedge.co.uk/chris-summits-kyajo-ri/ , he's a mountain rescue leader and trainer, and is an all-round crazy fitness guy. Anyway, this is sunset. Four layers of thermals and a jacket, and lots of layers protecting the crown jewels.

Have a great one, Todd!

Happy birthday!

That is great news, Steve

The link I gave to the Zeppelin gig at Southampton has a brilliant reference in it. Plant at one point says he went to the toilet, and saw the name "Alan Whitehead" written on the inside of the cubicle, and the next number was dedicated to him. Now I knew Alan well - Carole and I used to go to dinner at his and Ruth's student flat and vice versa (Ruth married him - but now decades divorced). He ended up as Student Union President - and then went into politics big time. This is him now, Member of Parliament for Test and Itchen (a Southampton constituency) https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/dr-alan-whitehead/62 . He is probably blissfully unaware that Zeppelin immortalized his student graffiti!

Found on the web thing. This is Zeppelin live at Southampton University Old Refectory, a micro-venue with 300 jam packed students. About 18 months before I started there. They take few numbers to warm up and get going, but after about 20 minutes they are truly superb.

Ditto to all of that. Good luck with Suzy, Steve - fingers crossed here in the UK.

Fragment of an unpublished Shakespeare sonnet?

Happy birthday!

They are MOSFET's, whereas J40/K170 are low noise JFET's. Why not just go for LSK74/LSJ170?