Knuckledragger

Bogen SRB-20 Tube Receiver.

Don't look now, but everyone's favorite fat headed Mexican is a 30 something ...for one more year.

Doing this show on equipment that's not been entirely tested post power outage/power surge, so this could get interesting.

After a two week hiatus, Test Tone @ Home is live on the internets right now! https://mixlr.com/illuminator/

Klipsch La Scalas.

What Mike Schultz looked like after battling COVID-19 for 6 weeks in the hospital. 1937 Western Clipper Motorhome. Political Compass, but it's Rammstein lyrics. 1976 Ferrari 308GT Rainbow. 1965 DKW Hummel 155.

I wonder what's anchoring that Tower of Scotch.

DIY tube amps made by the father of a user in reddit's /r/audiophile:

I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a crazed redneck who lives in the woods. I have an artesian well and the groundwater here is hard as a black metal album. I have not one but two filters between it and what I drink. The first is a grit filter, the second is a taste & odor (charcoal) filter. They needed to be changed when I locked myself in 9 weeks ago, and I was out of spares Today I arranged pickup of new filters and replaced them. This is what the grit filter looked like when I removed it: The filters are pure white when new. For two decades, I have snarkily referred to the filter swapping process as "changing the house's tampon" because I haven't matured terribly much in the last ~35 years. Mr. Frog was not at all impressed the proceedings.

I've been testing all night with the Blue Icicle plugged straight into a (USB3) port. So far, the yammering idiots in Discord haven't reported me going robotic once. Also, I should note that after I wrote the above message I remembered that my HeadAmp Pico DAC uses Micro USB. "The size no one uses anymore" indeed. Hi, Justin! 😁

"Toddler-Fi"

Interesting. I have my Icicle pugged into a USB hub. I have a PSU for the hub, but I have to leave it disconnected ...or the PC won't boot. For reasons that are unclear to me, the PC won't power on when the hub has a wall wart attached. Fortunately, my motherboard has a bunch of free ports. I just have to find a longer USB A to USB B mini (AKA the size no one uses anymore) cable to make it work. Thanks for the info.

I played two 16bit style JRPGs recently, Cthulhu Saves Christmas and and Cosmic Star Heroine. I'm still working on the latter, I haven't 100%'d it yet. I love Zeboyd games. 9 years ago, when I had a very crappy even for the time PC, I played both Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath of Death VII. All Zeboyd games are mechanically similar, but they have excellent writing and a very sharp sense of humor. Zeyboyd took over Penny Arcade's struggling On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series and did two in that series (3 and 4). I beat 3 and never quite finished 4. I might resume it some day, but I just as likely might not. What I like about Zeboyd games is that they're very low impact, both in terms of system resources but also player commitment. I beat Cthulhu Saves Christmas in just over 11 hours. I'm not at a point in my life where I can dedicate 100+ hours to an RPG like anything from The Witcher series. Also, since all the dialog is text I don't need to have the sound up terrible loud so I can listen to music/yammering idiots in a Discord call while I play. I need to find some more RPGs in this vein when I finish Cosmic Star Heroine.

Still assessing the damage from this weekend's electrical disaster. The Blue Icicle is kind of a piece of shit. I randomly goes into "ear shredding robot" which means I cannot use it for anything serious (like ranting about obscure electronic music.) I was in a Discord call last night and the Icicle acted up. The other people in the call began screaming and begging me to stop. Just as quickly, the Icicle began behaving again. It repeated this pattern 2-3 more times throughout the evening. I have to get a new USB audio interface, and I really need a new mic preamp (never buy Behringer.) This would be a relatively minor issue were we not in the middle of a global health an economic catastrophe. I have a good friend who is a studio nerd with a very good day job. For the last ...22 years I've advised him on synthesizer and other electronic music production gear. He's amassed a collection of over 100 EuoRack modules (he estimates he has "under 150" of them.) His gear budget is just a wee bit bigger than mine. I've asked him about getting an audio interface and when I told him "I mean under 4 digits in cost" he said he had no idea. 🤦‍♂️ Ideally I'd like something class compliant (meaning 2 channels, 16/44.1 max, but doesn't require drivers so it's future proof.) My experience with outboard audio equipment that requires drivers has been lousy at best. I should add: I have no idea what this means for future radio shows until I un-fuck the situation. I've worked out a bunch of different ideas in my head, but there's no real replacement for an audio interface ...except for an audio interface. SMH my head as the kids say.