Craig Sawyers

I have not, but have heard they can work well - the microphone in a smartphone seems to be of very high quality with a rather flat frequency response. I'd have to poke around on the web to substantiate that, but recall I've seen this written down. But I bought my XTZ unit a decade ago before smartphones were the palm sized high grade computers they now are. If I were doing measurements starting right now I would certainly research what the capabilities of my phone were and what were the best apps.

The two disc 180g vinyl of Famous Blue Raincoat (20th Anniversary limited edition) has some tracks that are not on the CD. Which came as a pleasant surprise when I played it. In the liner notes is a copy of a letter she sent to Cohen in 1956, when she was 9, about Song For Berndette. And also Cohen's reply. Just shows how a kind reply can have lifelong musical repercussions. Just tried to find a price for these - of course no longer a current pressing, and which now changes hands for $2000. Holy carp.

If you want to look at room modes, there are a number of apps for smartphones that should work quite well. I actually have one of these http://www.xtz.se/product/room-analyzer-ii-pro - well actually the earlier version. But they are dead easy to use; in USD it is about $270 (or a couple of hundred quid in across the pond money, where I lurk), and use a laptop to run the software. And if you put the microphone bang on the line of symmetry of your speakers you can check for matching irregularities by storing the frequency response of (say) the left speaker and then overlaying the right speaker.

Oh bugger. That is a major serious gob smacking loss. We were lucky enough to see him when he returned to touring maybe 8 years ago - and he was absolutely amazing live, one of the best concerts of all time. I have it on DVD, CD and black vinyl and will listen today in honour of a great man.

Happy birthday!

Have a truly great one!

We had a long weekend in Istanbul three years ago, and were struck with the relaxed atmosphere and the gracious people there. But given the current tensions, protests, terrorist bombs, attempted coup and extensive reprisals, there is absolutely no way we would return at this point. A real shame - it is a fine country with an amazing heritage.

Aha - Monsoon Estates (ref above) have just won an award for their coffee http://video.silverstream.tv/view/z7A9ngTd Thought it tasted bloody good.

I thought the one based on American Gothic was the awesomest

Some interesting details of getting an SPDIF interface to work properly are here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=45330.0 Although, even if you get the data transmission perfect with SPDIF you still have problems with clock recovery, the principles outlined can be applied to any digital link at all - as Pars said, a digital link of any sort is high bandwidth RF engineering, and many (most?) audio system designers do not understand this. Which would explain why different digital cables sound different on a particular system - if the impedances at high frequency are not well controlled, and significantly different from what they ought to be (50, 75 or 110 ohms say), then it is open turkey shoot for fiddling with digital cables to mitigate this.

^That sounds like quite a day, all things considered

Different sources of beans here in the UK, and many artisan roasters run by two or three people. Started with http://www.uecoffeeroasters.com/ , then went to https://www.beanberrycoffee.com/ and my current favourite is http://www.monsoonestates.co.uk/ . Currently drinking Monte Rosa (Guatemala) and anything from an Ethiopian cooperative (several kinds that come and go).

Test firing of one of the rockets (there are two of these, not four as I said above)

How about a Eurofighter jet engine and four rocket motors. Plus a 750HP racing engine to drive the peroxide pump that dumps 1000 litres in 20 seconds into the rockets. 135,000HP for 0-1000mph in 55 seconds covering 5.5 miles. And 500-1000 in 17 seconds once the rockets are lit. Maximum deceleration of 3g during braking. Glorious, glorious madness. My name is on the fin (along with a gazillion more) http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/

Now that is a lot of cats!

Jeeze. What a beast.

I prefer amp-less listening

Bloody well done Steve. Thank heavens right won the day.

One of our cats used to be the scourge of local rodents. Her specialty was rats. These were big buggers and clearly faught back from the state of the cat afterwards. But she always ate a large chunk of them after the kill. Then we had to worm her each time. She's 14 now, and has a bit of arthritis in her legs, and had had to hang up her rat catcher credentials.

Every once in a while (like every 6 months) something goes ping! in my brain, and I feel the naughty urge to have a McDonalds or Burger King meal. But a bit like sex with someone ugly, you feel almost instant regret and remorse once you're finished.

Hey you guys - it is the small hours of the morning here, and far too late for me to lust after pizza and profiteroles. Mmmm.

There are two five star posters - Stretch and Tice. Their one-liners crack me up to expelling beverages through the nostrils.

My carbon steel wok. Can't even remember how I seasoned it originally - it was ten or even fifteen years back. I just rinse with a sponge, dry and wipe over with some oil.

I'd intended to post this a lot earlier after the weird scuffling blue robot.

You seen Neil Young live recently? For whole eternities of the set he and his band stood with their backs to the audience and just jammed to themselves. And because he has got experimental in his late maturity there were bewildering numbers with garbage blowing across the stage from a huge fan. No, I've still no idea what that was about.