dsavitsk

This one's pretty good, too http://gawker.com/5868761/christopher-hitchens-unforgivable-mistake

I used to like his stuff in The Nation. I saw him speak in Chicago in early 2001. He showed up very late, appeared to be very drunk, and was pretty incoherent. I found most of his post 9/11 commentary to be pretty repellent, and I largely stopped paying any attention to him. A not so nice writeup, http://www.salon.com..._figure_deaths/ And an apropos and ironic quote from Orwell (from the article), "The people who write that kind of stuff never fight; possibly they believe that to write it is a substitute for fighting. It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours."

Probably too many factors to predict. Older well made rectifiers can handle a lot more abuse than some of the new cheapies. If you search around, there are tons of stories of cheap modern 5AR4's failing where old tubes worked fine (seems especially common in guitar amps -- partly because a lot of relabeling goes on). In the most extreme cases, you'll see a flash in the rectifier where they arc. This can kill a tube instantly. Assuming this has not happened, then either measuring for voltage changes over time, or putting the tube in a tester is probably the best bet.

The fact that a different rectifier tube changes how your amplifier sounds does not imply that rectifier tubes have some inherent sound to them. Understanding why this is the case is actually of some importance. As KG noted, different rectifier tubes will drop different voltages. Some may also change the impedance of the power supply. This, in turn, changes the operating point of the amplifier itself. Thus, the rectifier simply changes the parameters at which the other active components are operating. Sometimes this may lead to one sound, sometimes to another. But it is not sound imparted by the rectifier. While a particular rectifier may warm up one amp, this does not mean it will have the same effect on another. If you are just swapping out rectifier tubes, there is nothing systematic and no predictability. A variable regulator with a variable output impedance can accomplish much the same thing. For instance, in this circuit, one can change both the voltage, and the power supply’s output impedance. By doing so, one can adjust an amplifier for lowest distortion, or whatever parameters one is interested in. This is much the same thing that is accomplished with the changing rectifier, except that in this case the designer knows what is going on rather than haphazardly changing things, and it is repeatable so that a customer hears what the designer heard and can thus actually judge the merit of the design. To me, an amp that is excessively responsive to tube rolling, particularly one that is responsive to rectifier rolling, is simply a sloppy design. Tube rectifiers do have some real use. They provide an easy slow start circuit. They have lower switching noise than many solid state parts, they dissipate heat above the chassis (heat, of course, that might not exist in a sand rectifier), and they can drop excess voltage which is useful if one is using an off the shelf power transformer. But, if you are using them to tune your circuit, you have an underdeveloped circuit. In that there is not a single person on the planet who can hear a difference in a double blind test? Could be.

I think you mean prophet, but the mistake is funny.

I'm not trying to pick on you Larry. But, this strikes me as the equivalent of suggesting that painting your car red makes it corner better. We can't all do double blind tests for everything, but a little more skepticism in audio would go a long way. There are real, and reproducible reasons certain types of amplifiers wok well with certain headphone designs, but rectifier tubes are not likely one of them -- unless of course the voltage drop is grossly different I suppose.

I think you and are going to have to fight it out.

For those following this thread, short kits are available ... http://beezar.com/ca...products_id=142

Posts like this are why I stopped reading at that other site ...

4-pin XLR has 4 pins + a ground connection.

Generally, people use male on the source, and female on the amp.

I am a strong believer that the difference between tubes and solid state has much less to do with actual differences between tubes and transistors, and much more to do with amplifier topology. The amps you mention will all have a non-0 output impedance, and I would wager that that is what you like about the combination. Unless there is an issue with the design, tubes do just fine at amplifying high frequencies well past human hearing. But, the interaction of the higher impedance amp with the impedance curve of the headphone driver, to me, leads to the warmer, punchier, sound.

First time I heard them, I agreed. After playing with them a little last weekend, my sense is that to my ears they, like Grados, do much better with an amp that has a non-zero Zout. High feedback just seems to lead to over damping, but run them with something that has a Zout around 10 Ohms and they warm up nicely and gain a little punch. The LCD's sound pretty nice, but I can't get past how heavy they are.

A friend of mine was hired as a temp many years ago doing data entry. The position was supposed to last 3 months. However, being a computer programmer, he found a way to automate the process, which took him all of a day. Once it was done, he was laid off. Maybe check out ReportLab. Or, for more hands on, use ADO from a scripting language (Python or something) to grab data from XL, put it in the form, then use a shell command to print. Then do it again.

I think I'd get an Airport Express and a Tivoli, or just a small powered speaker if you don't need the radio.

The consensus seems to be that it is BC. The question is whether it is all nonsense or not. I have no opinion on that, I thought Bud's posts were interesting (Bud makes Onetics transformers).

http://www.diyaudio....candy-ebay.html see posts 50, 56, 57, etc.

Some weird database confusion

The Fuji really looks like the winner and worth waiting for. It is amazing to me that a shutter speed knob on the top and an aperture ring on the lens would be such a novelty. Maybe Zeiss will come out with a digital Ikon ...

FTMFW!

Happy Birthday, Donald!

Cool. Yes.

I've got a tube push pull Gm amp for headphones. Maybe not quite what you are looking for, but might be OK. Also, digger945 has one, I think.

The Fuji looks really neat, but I agree that it is a little too idiosyncratic. Too bad, really. I'll check out the Sony, though the combination of Sony and Minolta is not something that inspires a lot of confidence. But, I'll go in with an open mind. Thanks for the suggestions.

Sorry if this is repetitive. I am looking for a new camera. I have pretty specific wants and I have thus far not been able to find what i am looking for. The background is that this will be replacing my trusty Contax G1, and I basically want that camera with a digital back. So, I would like digital, interchangeable lenses of good quality, compact (mirrorless most likely as SLRs are too bulky), a system that won't become obsolete, etc. More specifically, I want to control aperture and shutter speed "mechanically" meaning I don't want to toggle through an LCD screen to set them. Bonus points if the aperture control is a ring on the lens. I also am primarily interested in fixed focal length lenses as 95% of the time I'll use the equivalent of a 35mm F/2.0 for a 35mm camera (the other 5% I'd want a 90mm equiv macro). I would also love the ability to manually focus. I don't care about stabilization, video, stitching together panoramas, reducing red eye, flashes that pop up, or any of that. Just a good sensor, and good glass. The obvious "right" answer is the M9, but it is too expensive by a factor of about 10. Does anyone else make anything that fits the bill?