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Nice day

The Queen...

Although I live only a few blocks from Moffett Field/NASA Ames/Google's private airport, I rarely go through security. Strangely they get a little nervous with random people going "off course" and taking photos. ;) Plus the Space Bar has been closed for a while. An author was speaking this weekend though so swung by and snapped a few shots afterward “on course”. Leica SL2-S and, what's been mostly glued on lately, Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Double Aspherical "11873".

Likely the last long training ride was accomplished today. I didn't start out intending to ride this far, but it happened and felt good.

In the cat's defense, there was no more practical way to get on top of the speaker.

Miles Davis, The Complete Birth of the Cool Music on TIDALMiles Davis - The Complete Birth Of The CoolListen to The Complete Birth Of The Cool on TIDAL

My favorite Jamiroquai album... over time it's also become my son's favorite too

working through glitches and continuing to make good progress, I’ve now passed the 50% line on my fundraising goal and certainly appreciate all the support received so far!

So, a few months back I reached out to Simmconn as I though this pentode experiment would be very nice to try and he very kindly shared pcbs for the project. A couple of other projects got in the way right then but at the end of my summer vacation I had some free time and this was the perfect project to do: Obviously a bit of tidying up remains (both in the amp and behind it ), but it behaves very well and the sound is really good - a bit more bite compared to the EL34 Carbon GG but with the same tonal balance. Definitely a project worth pursuing should you be looking for something new to try. And a big shoutout to simmconn for finding these tubes and developing this version!

"I'm gonna scratch the shit out of those speaker grills."

Saw Kaki King last night, small venue in Southern Maine about 1.5 miles from my condo. She is so good! I described it on FB as feeling like being by a lake with gentle waves lapping onto the shore - at least her mellower songs. Then she would break out into her frenetic playing with body hits for rhythm, and fast finger moving and fret-playing. She even got pretty talkative with the audience. I guess it was her 3rd time playing the place; maybe 50 people there, but they were true fans.

A guy on reddit rehoused Alec 604e in new enclosures:

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Hey we are back!!! Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson by Ben Webster (1959) https://open.qobuz.com/album/0060253773074 Example: Friday coolness.

Not serious, but true. 1954: Capitol issued Classics in Jazz: Miles Davis (T-762), compiling the 12 recordings from the famous Birth of the Cool sessions. Later in 1957: Capitol retitled/reissued the LP as Birth of the Cool. Cool is so much cooler.

Music on TIDALCerrone - 3 - SupernatureListen to 3 - Supernature on TIDALI was looking at other artists who did the continuous groove thing (initially inspired by a listening of Jean Michel Jarre's Equinoxe Pts. 5-7, but also: New Order's The Village/5 8 6, MacArthur Park, Philip Oakey/Giorgio Moroder side 1, &c.), and Google AI turned me on to this disco suite. Suites. Sweets. Whatever. Kinda how I felt when Steve Hackett released his first classical guitar recording, Bay of Kings. But I eventually came to love it, just like everything else in his discography.

Sudamericano by Leonardo Andersen (2026) https://open.qobuz.com/album/ytv241s3u2iqc Example: Nothing really groundbreaking here, but very nice. Well recorded and well played.

I'm enjoying this channel -- lots of cool unique versions. https://youtube.com/@caffinated80s-tt2oc That version of Moving in Stereo at the top is (fire)

Rokia Traoré's Né So Ex. Edit: Looks like she has an old Tiny Desk too.

Promotional stress reliever from a company that makes ear plugs.

I love seeing Kaki King play. I've seen her in smallish places but not in front of only 50 people! In SF she draws much bigger. She's most often been quite chatty at shows I've seen.

Jazz Standards to Kill Yourself To (Full Album) “Free Black Metal is a subgenre of metal that uses entirely improvised songwriting, akin to Free Jazz.” 00:00 Autumn Leaves 4:54 All The Things You Are 10:49 Giant Steps 14:01 So What 22:50 Blue In Green

So a new electrostatic seems to be incoming: https://apos.audio/products/sjy-argos-electrostatic-headphones?utm_campaign=hyperfuse_last_day%20%2801KZW4554JVNW58G1HET4TN43W%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alex_nongdpr_never_subbed_active_180&_kx=cd77Rbf3yu6_OAujM-M4VU1ihuQFsjtyVcb-jl8r-OKxvi62Czezy2yxdLQUUnAj.Ldk8SW I've been keeping an eye on them for a while, no idea what that company is but hey, more the merrier and all that. I just saw the new updated page for these and it is just what the fuck, are they retarded? First off, "fully vented drivers" being spun as something that is positive. Hello, what is the number one rule of planar design? Something about an infinite baffle? No? Anybody here have any fucking clue what they are doing? No? Let's spin our engineering ineptitude as a positive Yes, that is what the drivers need, room to breathe. A common problem with all planar drivers is that they are just being suffocated. What a novel idea and people making planars for 70+ years have clearly all been wrong. Seriously, who thinks the actual reason is that the drivers are horribly unstable so the extra pressure from a sealed baffle would knock them out of balance. So instead of fixing that, let's just employ marketing wank. Then we have the cable... what the actual fuck. Just look at this thing: Anybody who makes a braided cable for electrostatics needs to be taken out back and beaten repeatedly with a copy of the Art of Electronics. The whole point of the fucking cable is to minimize capacitance... not add to it!! Now this looks like the cheap crappy headphone cables coming out of China so I very much doubt it's high voltage credentials. I also love the Y split on a commercial set of headphones... a piece of clear heatshrink. It's also 1.5meters in length, probably to cut down on the pile of extra capacitance this turd adds to the load. Then you can get a proper extension cable and have the headphones reach anything as these are hardly portable.

This. and just to show the contrast of the passage of 16 years ...

I'm not saying, I'm just totally saying.

Started watching Lanterns (HBOMax). Pretty good so far (1st episode). I've never been much into the comic book stuff (Spiderman, et. al.), but enjoyed Watchmen (movie and series) and am liking this one so far. https://youtu.be/7UIBOsuUwc4 Also watching Reacher s4, mentioned above. Dialog is still cringeable, but watched the first 3 episodes and still enjoyed them. Will continue watching.

Pet Shop Boys’ All The Young Dudes / West End Girls (with the Manchester Camerata)

I was a weird little kid. No surprise there. As a youngster and up until present times, I loved things kids weren't supposed to like. Spinach and liver are good examples. The only two people in my family that liked liver were myself and my Mother. Especially chicken livers! One day back in the 70's, my Father took my Mother to a new restaurant for lunch. She noticed on the breakfast menu a chicken liver omelet. She intended to go back and try it sometime. One day it was just her and I running errands, and she remembered this restaurant close by. We both had the chicken liver omelet and both loved it. I have no idea why I haven't recreated this omelet to date, but today is the day! Delicious!!!

new drop

I'm attempting to get started with fundraising a little earlier this year for the annual Kelly Brush Ride that I will once again be participating in this year. It's the same group of friends this year, likely minus one who unfortunately can't make it due to work reasons, but we're trying something a little different as a group this year. My friend Tom, who goes us all drawn into this madness, knows Kelly very well and the organization is trying to encourage folks to participate in the ride remotely. They've kind of reached critical mass in Middlebury, VT, with more than 800 riders participating so they can't really grow unless they change something. So our group sort of volunteered to be the pilot and we're headed to the coast of Maine to ride by a bunch of lighthouses and hopefully have some fun while suffering. Why am I explaining all this? Well, we want to show that remote folks can still effectively fundraise and participate. So we're going all-in and getting custom jerseys made to commemorate the ride. So all that said, I'm once again asking this group to be like no other forum. I'd very much appreciate any support that you can offer. The foundation is aiming to raise $1.2M to support individuals with spinal chord injuries to regain an active lifestyle. My personal goal is to raise $2,500. This organization and cause remains something near and dear to me as someone who takes the simple ability to get outdoors and do whatever I like, when I like, somewhat for granted. Every year I participate I find it helps refocus and recenter my appreciation for those that chose to not be limited by life-altering injuries, illness, etc. The foundation helps people discover adaptive sports and recreation, hosts camps to immerse people in sports and community, and most importantly, provides hundreds of grants per year to people that just want to return to the activities they love. Anyway, if you're able here's the link to donate to support me: Nate's KBF Fundraising Page And just for fun here's us with Kelly at the starting line last year. I'm hoping for much better weather this year so we can pound social media with pics and vids of our remote ride.

Couldn't afford a video but it's still a vibe.

It was mostly adjusting the design to different parts and the weird stuff were the PCB caps that Stax decided to use... plus the enlarged the amp chassis for no particular reason. In terms of being better than the 252S... nope.

Thank god they renamed it from Classics in Jazz: Miles Davis

Yes, but can your camera play DOOM? https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/github-programmer-ports-doom-to-dslr-camera-with-3-inch-tft-lcd-display-canon-eos-550d-with-open-source-magic-lantern-firmware-uses-cameras-button-as-controls-even-plays-sound

Unfortunately UK only, but…

It must have been a distorting mirror universe You could almost say it's ...

Techmoan buys 3 video disc players to see how well they function as CD players, and creates a spreadsheet to evaluate them.

There was a guy on another thread who recently bought some cable from China, and randomly found that a magnet stuck to it. It was iron wire with a thin copper coat. And what a stoopid idea of them using braided cable, and ridiculously short. High capacitance (usually around 50 to 100pF/m, or even more) and very low inductance (sub uH/m). Oh and use the hardback version of Art of Electronics 1.5m would add at least 75 - 150pF!!!

Japan's SHM-SACD

^ On that note, The Ultimate Bill Evans As Selected By Herbie Hancock, which seems in Japan to be titled To Bill Evans With Love – Selected By Herbie Hancock on SCM-CD.

Okay, I finally confirmed the source of the problem today. It looks like the LSK389 input stage is simply extremely sensitive and is very easily picking up magnetic field noise from the power transformer.

... and when the satellite company doesn't want their dish back, you can make a bird bath.

Now we are talk'in 😉. The tube channel has become really close to the SiC FET channel, both at 100V output. The performance is not yet at the Carbon level, but is pretty good for a tube amp. What was the problem with the previous mod? The simplified G2 supply didn't work well. This tube is quite sensitive to Vg2 (which may make it a good candidate for G2-drive applications, given the low Ig2). The previous circuit has Vg1 as part of Vg2, so the Vg1 variations causes Vg2 changes. The solution is to use one 150V zener diode for each tube, put it across G2 and K, and feed <1mA of current from GND using a resistor or a current source. I also added a 10uF capacitor in parallel with the zener. Without it, the output clips at around 300V but the distortion still looks good before the clipping. Now the circuit should deserve an audition. Since the main problem is the knee on the Ia curve and Ig2 curve below Va=100V, with higher B- (500V maybe?) and perhaps higher current, the tube circuit should perform even better. I'll leave that to the next episode. For now I'm waiting for the sockets from China to build the other channel.