Craig Sawyers

I thought it sounded like early Genesis, complete with Peter Gabriel dressed up in an outrageous costume Or even better, early Pink Floyd, who invented a whole lexicon of nonsense:

I so wish that was true - I'd want to be a Beef Twister or Turnip Shepherd! But is is spoof, alas. Appendix 5 of this tome http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~matthew/Papers/Woollard_1881Classifications_no illustration.pdf has the 1881 UK census classifications. It is all very dry and oh so sensible. Unfortunately.

This is actually yesterday. I went on a one-day advanced navigation course in the (English) Lake District, in Langdale. This was navigating with contours only, and the trainer provided maps that only had contours, and the symbols for cliffs etc. But nothing else - no roads, paths, streams etc etc. So the focus was in knowing where you are - where were you last, where are you now, and what will you see next. A further key learning point was how to move efficiently - basically I didn't - so I have a whole history of walking to unlearn. Fascinating stuff And this is the map. contours map.pdf

Oh bugger

Well, I can cheerfully report that the mad phono stage sounds absolutely stunning. I've been going through record after record and depending on what I'm listening to I've giggled, sung along and wept depending on what I've got on. Kind of standard with the territory it takes a long time to warm up. There are three servos - one to null the voltage across the cartridge to zero. One to null the output of the input stage to zero, and one to null the output of the second stage to zero. Given that every stage runs hot, and that there are two of these per balanced channel it takes a while to sort itself out and stabilise. It will remain on permanently. Thank heavens it does sound stunning - given the overall cost of circuit boards, parts (lot of em), and time in build and test, layout and procurement of the shunt regulator boards etc - I would have been royally pissed off if it had sounded not good!

It is so very good to hear that everyone is safe and sound (and posting again!) after the horrendous winds and rain over recent days.

My usual stunt is to replace a tyre that has a puncture, just to get the new one punctured in less than a week. (reply to Grahame's post...)

I know what you mean about inductors. The disadvantage is you have to get the value large enough to prevent weird oscillatory behavior. You can get a similar filtering effect with RC-RC-RC filtering too. But the diodes are ultra fast soft recovery type (MUR820 - 25ns recovery) so generate very little hash indeed. And an R-core transformer is inherently split bobbin - one side is the mains winding and the other the low voltage secondaries. So they pass hardly any hash because the interwinding capacitance is tiny.

The horror, the horror. Basically this is the final Erno Borbely design. It is a current mode phono stage, where the cartridge looks into close to zero impedance. First stage with parallel J40/K170, and a power stage to drive the passive RIAA. Then a 40dB gain stage with power stage to drive the output. It can be configured many different ways: No feedback first stage, with input R of about 4 ohms for higher R moving coils Feedback first stage which reduces input R to tiny value for low R moving coils. Can be run single ended or balanced input, and single ended or balanced output. I've set it up as a no-feedback version, fully balanced IO. There is a bal2unbal board which I currently have not wired in. Shunt regulator for each board, layout by moi. Dual power supply, each with dual bridge rectifier and lots of smoothing cap.

Lucky man - any version of the CAT is impressive (and pocket-crunchingly expensive). Counter-intuitive if you look at the board area that is film capacitors, but it apparently sounds and measures superbly.

Slowly completely my bat shit silly phono stage. Currently working on a grounding scheme to remove 200mV (!!)of hum on the outputs. I'll post pics once sorted.

Hey - welcome back dude!

Don't for heavens sake try to have a barbecue in that, because you can't have your kayak and heat it. Which reminds me of the chess convention. After a few drinks in the hotel bar, they were sat in the lobby having a loud discussion about the matches that they had won that day. Eventually the manager came and threw them out on the basis that he did not want chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

Yet

Wow - he also did Poltergeist. RIP Tobe Hooper. I remember that when Chainsaw Massacre came out, when you came out of the cinema badges were handed out that said "I survived the Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Dunno what happened to mine.

I don't know if anyone caught the news from the UK that eight were killed on the M1 motorway at 3:15am on Saturday morning. Basically a minibus of holidaymakers was sandwiched between two trucks and cut in two. The remaining four suffered serious injury and are in hospital. The two truck drivers were charged with multiple counts of causing death by dangerous driving. One driver (I think that was the FedEx driver) has also been charged with being over the legal alcohol limit. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/27/two-men-charged-over-m1-motorway-crash-that-killed-eight-people RIP the dead and their families.

Went to see Shakespeare's gore-fest Titus Andronicus in Stratford. We had one guy stabbed to death and castrated, and his wife multiply raped, her hands cut off and tongue cut out. Two others were strung up by their feet and had their throats cut, and then baked in a pie and fed at a banquet to their mother. I actually lost count of the number of people killed, and in how many creative ways. It is basically a revenge tale which quickly got out of hand in a seriously big way. Titus was played by David Troughton, the son of Patrick Troughton (the second Dr Who). When the actors came on to take their bows it looked like a scene from a horror movie - all of them soaked in stage blood. https://www.rsc.org.uk/titus-andronicus/

I've heard that a classic haircut involved a singe

Well, I got it from the horse's mouth in 1991 when we (Wharfedale) bought Cambridge Audio. NAD's founder Martin Borish was also involved at some point. He was trying to sell NAD and was putting out feelers for Wharfedale's potential interest, so I asked him what NAD stood for. In the end he sold NAD to a Danish outfit IIRC.

Here's a factoid. NAD is an acronym for New Acoustic Dimension.

Turns out that this particular hug dog can look like anything on the spectrum of pug-like through to siberian husky http://www.101dogbreeds.com/hug-dog.asp . It brings up the slightly bizarre notion of a husky getting it on with a pug. You probably have to put the pug on a chair first to get over the height difference There are equally bizarre husky cross breeds on the same page - like the chusky with a chow.

How did it go Shelly? I had one done last year - one hour for emergency treatment and two two-hour sessions. For me it was an amazing non-event other than the amount of time in the chair and the traumatic extraction from my wallet.

Nah - that is a Family Guy caricature of English food in the same way as folks on your side of the pond living on hot dogs and burgers. Which is equally untrue - I've eaten exceptionally well in the US

? Er, no. The Hand and Flowers 126 West Street Marlow SL7 2BP 30 miles from where we live.

At The Hand and Flowers in Marlowe (2 Michelin Star) Summer Radish and Haggis Tart with Crispy Lamb, Creamed Horseradish and Lemon Thyme Essex Lamb “Bun” with Sweetbreads and Salsa Verde Blueberry Soufflé with Parma Violet Ice Cream and Verbena Custard Awesome Others around the table had things that looked like this Loin of Cotswold Venison with Black Pudding, Salt Baked Carrot, Keema Pie and Lime Pickle "Fish du Jour" (forget which fish it was) with Butter Roasted Cabbage, Seaweed, Caviar and Toasted Brassica Beurre Blanc Gooseberry and White Chocolate Bavarois with Provence Sponge and Bay Leaf Ice Cream (the thing that looks like Saturn!)