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Couple things.....my LinkedIn transformation is as complete as I think I'll get. Added a pronoun (Red Lectroid) and updated my profile pic. Next up: met three school friends, all Jewish women, one of whom I hadn't seen in 40 years! An awesome time catching up, and spending time with them all. The woman I hadn't seen in 40 years gave me 3 things from her scrapbook: my Bar-Mitzvah invitation, the Party Invitation, and my Thank You note to her. All about 48+ years old! It was incredible! She and her husband live in Southern Maine, not far from my condo up there. So we'll definitely get together! I am fucking LOVING retirement!

Yesterday: Finally had a clear "two person" day, so Out with the Old. Well 💩, that explains a lot. No time to tilt the the house, so In with the New: Good enough for one day. I must say using a laser level is a game changer ensuring that things are level and line up, even if the building is out of true. Just remember: And then today, some finishing touches, and cable management. And then finally voice automation. Because: Of course. Some non ideal / contrived syntax commands because: reasons, but that's balkanized home automation. Looks nice though (Marin OLED 2 time club)

Forgot to post last night, grabbed dinner after meetings in Mississippi concluded. Turns out the south knows how to do chicken and waffles.

new to me. Pretty melodies plus soundscapes.

Got the Cervelo back out on the road on one of our few sunny spring days so far. It was windy, but still a nice rip around town.

Up at the Maine condo this weekend, a cloudy & cold day turned into a stunner of a beautiful one! Went into Kennebunkport and next to no one was there. Had a great walk around, bought some arty shit, and stayed for dinner. Have always enjoyed Alisson's Restaurant for better-than-pub dining, tonight sat at the bar and had a Lagavulin 16 and my favorite of theirs, the Lobster Bisque Lobster Roll. Worth the $, along with a brief chat with a couple folks at the bar.

bœuf

A few updates. Bought the above Obscura, but returned. Really loved the idea, but less robust than I like (Magrette Regattare being my only automatic reference). Also photography related, Increment Labs is releasing their first watch in a couple weeks with a light meter built in. That’s interesting, though the design is not. Take a look Casio lovers - https://www.increment-labs.com . Hope it succeeds. My Obscura refund money needed to go somewhere (besides the obvious savings), so being an Ohio native and a veteran, Lum-tec Watch Combat Field X5 Titanium 24H incoming. Even bought from a reseller near where I used to bike in high school. Apple Watch holds on the other wrist.

If you liked Mammal Hands, I think you'll also like Vega Trails' latest album. Composed by saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands) and Milo Fitzpatrick (Portico Quartet) I love the Rhodes/Piano played by Taz Modi: I still listen to their first album very often. PD. I'm glad to be back

^ Great pick up. Regretting not hitting RSD, but from a thrift store visit a month ago - Frantic Percussion (in stereo-stereo). This works for Saturday afternoon house cleaning. Full album:

Record store day!

Finished the right channel today. Feedback as suggested by Justin. Bias servo as suggested by Kevin. Red smoke – Super Symmetrical mode. Green smoke – Zero Feedback mode.

Also, I have been thinking about doing a revised layout for this amp, but adding some things such as Kevin's protector board, and possibly adapting the circuit used by nwavguy in the o2 for battery management to delay startup until the 2 Meanwell bricks had both come up, since this is what is causing the large DC offsets at startup (and possibly at shutdown as well). I know the protect board would take care of the startup issue so might be overkill for the additional circuit. The board would have to be larger in size to accommodate these changes, which should also have some benefits thermally. Large heatsinks for both the Amb regs and the onboard regs would also be a good idea. This is just at concept phase right now, and I'm not really interested in on for myself, but might do it anyway. If so, I will ask Kevin for permission to use his protect board circuitry for this.

I know there isn't much interest in these amps anymore, but wanted to post my findings regarding thermals. I spent around 3 hours yesterday testing the one I have in for repair to evaluate whether these run cooler with no heatsink, heatsink only, or heatsink with a spreader bar to tie it to the top cover. @johnwmclean had at one point suggested that he thought these might run cooler without. I forget which user suggested and implemented a spreader bar, which for them resulted in lower temps. I used a thermocouple with the covers on to do this test. For the 1st case (no HS), I put the thermocouple on top of the upper right transistor in the L- channel. For the other two tests, the thermocouple was touching the collector tab. I tried to wait long enough for things to stabilize completely, which never really happened. Even after an hour or more, the temp would go up 0.1 ºC every minute or so. Here are the results: bare 91.8 (shortest test, around 45 minutes) HS only 92.6 (approx 1 hour +) HS w/spreader 87.1 (1 hr 20 min) all temps in ºC. Ambient temp 22.1 ºC. It appears that w/spreader is the winner. That temp was going up slower than the other two, so I would guess that the margin is a bit larger. i made the spreader with a couple of pieces of 1/8" and 1/16" thick aluminum x 1" stock.

You guys are on fire - Three things I have not heard before - and three bangers. Mammal Hands - was a really nice set - tight percussion throughout and very theatrical. (will explore more) Dada - was not what I expected, but I really liked the vibes and the stories were good. Will check out American Highway Flower. Frantic Percussion - was too short - not on QOBUZ so had to settle for the YT needledrop. Everything I wanted from the Stereo Stereo. This is why I like this thread so much - Maybe not the Mozart Ass licking.. but still.

Probably should be at RSD, but getting nostalgic another direction with America's Greatest Hits. Full album:

Thanks guys, Looks like I have some QA work to do... cheers. Edit: I have looked into it a bit further and it is confusing. Since this is a ticketed event, it is not really set up that easily to give a donation only. There's not a lot of options in the setup, but here is at least a simplified process going forward. https://givebutter.com/WalkforBelonging2026/michaels-walking-team I think we can choose our wording on the page and the donation links a lot better going forward as well. Thanks again all for your help.. -- cheers.

Speaking of wars… Massive Attack & Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/apr/16/massive-attack-boots-on-the-ground-ft-tom-waits-review-first-single-in-a-decade-is-a-dark-hymn-for-our-times

GoGo Penguin "Necessary Fictions" The interplay between the drummers of GoGo Penguin and Mammal Hands is fascinating: Rob Turner, Jesse Barrett and Jon Scott. I consider all three drummers to be great, with fantastic sounds and grooves that give both trios a lot of character. I love the tracks where they play syncopated rhythms... microtextures or simply seem to be off-beat before returning to the correct tempo.

I've always been a fan of her as an actress, but jiminy, this 1 minute as a musician is sublime.

His 'n' Hers Indian ice creams

Keeping it classy in the ATL.

That's My Story: John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues by John Lee Hooker (1960) https://open.qobuz.com/album/tkvkntyv6760o Example: A worthy remaster - little hot on the mic now and then, but a really good recording.

Beck will depress you and make it feel so damn good.

Good Lord. He's the Akakichi no Eleven meme come to life.

I am smitten -- this is gorgeous, right up there with Ólafur Arnalds. Thank you for sharing.

I was just able to donate via Firefox. I first tried to pay using ACH, but my credentials timed out. Then I switched to PayPal and that worked just fine.

For some reason using Firefox, even lowering the security restrictions, the “continue” button wouldn’t activate. Switched to Chrome, then it run smoothly. Now they’re stealing my data

SOME of us were able to figure that out already.....! 🤣 j/k, thanks Mikey!

Saw it was your BDay on my mobile, and thought I'd post when I get home....looks like we all forgot! Hope it was a great day, and wish you many many more! BTW: one of my (humorous) pet peeves are people who wish "Happy Belated Birthday." The BIRTHDAY wasn't late, your wish was!! 🤣

Thanks Al, I will take a second look at the site settings. I know that a lot of things are built in by Givebutter, but there maybe some options. Sorry for the issues and many thanks again for the generous support. - cheers.

It worked this morning and I'm in, although I can't tell if it credited to you or just your team. Last night the main page loaded fine but as soon as I clicked on something and went back I only got errors when clicking buttons. My initial back and forth was due to confusion related to the buttons. I first clicked "Fundraise" next to your photo thinking that would be the donation page but that is for becoming a fundraiser and participating in the walk I guess. Then, I clicked "I support reentry efforts" and saw a screen about buying tickets. I failed to see the little line at the bottom of that page saying to click there if you just want to donate. After those two attempts, I only got errors. Probably too late but it would seem far clearer for the main page to have one button reading Buy Tickets and another reading Donate Now to Support Reentry Efforts or something.

New headphone protector. Four layers board. Two LM4040 2.5V references. Limits set to ~ +/-20 mA.

Happy non-non-AI birthday wish

Thank you guys! Maybe your information will help me with the problem I've with my CFA3smd in SS mode. Removed feeback resistors from board and wired 50K xicons (at red arrows) from outputs to after 5K resistors at inputs. Now steady bias and zero offset. So far so good. But it's still on the kitchen table.

great work ! glad my post helps and yes total length of feedback loop will affect DC offset from my past experience with my own split board attempt , looks like having some oscillation ?

Ex Skylark gathering nibbles.

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!

Done as well! Keep up the great work, Mikey.

Agreed, listened to it a couple of days ago.

Reworking my CFA3 for ZF/SS switching. Inspired by ang728's hat board, I designed a split-board version. It works fine with ZF but has issues with SS: R channel: 0.2V offset, fluctuating ±0.1V. L channel: <30mV offset, fluctuating ±0.1V. Bias: Stable. Tried those solutions from previous posts but unsuccessful to solve any issues: -Removed hat board; use original jumpers for ZF/SS. -Added 680pF between B-C of output transistors. -Removed C9, C10 (20pF). -Replaced all PZTA56/06. -Swapped THAT340 / K389-J109 / K170-J74. Changing R171, R211, R272, R322 from 300R(silkscreen) to 600R(schematic) fixed the 0.2V offset, but both channels still fluctuate. Suspecting trace interference, I directly wired the jumpers to SS mode. The fluctuation is gone. So I redesign the hat board. SS resistors(R44, R49) sit on hat boards. SS jumpers and SS resistors are removed from cfp3smt2splitpre. My final result to get stable and low DC offet will be: -Using the hat board -R171, R211, R272, R322 = 600R. -Remove C3, C7, C9, C10 (600pF & 20pF) Thanks ang728, his posts helped me a lot.

Middle Eastern wars just sounded ... better in the 80s.