dsavitsk

Happy Birthday, Scott!

Another interesting option? The word on various sites seems to be that the Wharfedale Pro 8.2 uses the same drivers and amps as the QUAD 12L, but it instead has a front facing port and costs just over $300 for a pair new. No nearly as pretty, but perhaps cheap and functional? Also, in the unpowered realm, Wharfedale EVO2-8's seem to be on a big sale everywhere -- looks like a new model is coming out -- which might make them a good choice.

I was always under the belief that spdif was just one of the things carried by the hdmi cable, and that you could just open up a cable and break it out. Maybe the issue is telling the source that there is something connected at all? This one is a little cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/SPDIF-Component-Ypbpr-Converter-v1-3b/dp/B002SFT3ZI

The sad thing is I own a pair of smaller B&W's that I loaned to my brother a few years ago, and that do not appear to be coming back. I've not heard the Wharfedales, but the 9.1's look pretty promising as they have front pointing ports which I gather will allow them to be closer to the wall. And, it looks like about $8 in parts to refurb the crossovers, and perhaps some goop for bracing could make it a nice project speaker. It does strike me that there are enough cheap and good bookshelves out there, and perhaps some super small digital amps or powered versions of speakers, that this can be experimented with for little enough cash outlay to just put the amps in storage for a bit until I decide what I want to do, or get a bigger apartment.

Definitely agree on the used thing. And, if a used pair can be had in the $500-600 range, then that's easy enough to just demo them before making any other changes.

I'm having trouble getting a sense on price for these. Amazon has them at $1199, but that looks to be one speaker. I contacted a local dealer who said they don't stock them, but that they can special order a pair and they will be $1350 for the pair (instead of the usual $1500).

If I find myself in a bind with no speakers at some point, I'll take you up on that. For now, I am in no huge hurry. I just needed to say it out loud, as it were, to start mulling the idea over in my head. I am concerned that I'll take a huge step backward doing this, which is definitely not what I want to do. Plus, I made some PCBs for making a modified F1, and I have parts around to build a tube Gm amp, neither of which would make any sense with traditional dynamic speakers. Both violate the urge to simplify, too.

Room is ~15x15, but it is largely open to the next room which is ~12x20. For space behind the speakers, the less the better. I would actually love to mount them right on the wall, or at the least on arms attached to the wall.

I hadn't, but I will. Interesting.

I am in the process of trying to simplify my life as much as possible. Additionally, I have found that, while I will spend many hours a week listening to headphones, it is not unusual to go weeks at a time without turning on the stereo. I live in a small apartment, with neighbors downstairs I don't want to disturb, and I also just don't like loud music anymore. And I am no fan of SE sound. All of these things have me thinking that getting rid of the 300B amps and the floor standing full range drivers might be a good thing. So, I am looking for advice on what to replace it with. I have a source/preamp I am happy with. So, this really comes down to power amp and speakers. I want it to all be as small as possible, ideally with the speakers mounted to the wall (on vesa arms or something) and with a power amp hidden out of view. That probably means no tubes, and no 25W class A amps. It seems like there are really two directions I could go. The first would be a very low power sand amp (perhaps a modified FirstWatt type design to output 2W or so) with some sort of high efficiency speaker -- though I am not sure what that would be. The second would be a chip amp (horror!) with a more conventional speaker. So, the advice I am seeking is really speakers. And, my starting point is to say that, historically, I always kind of liked B&W's sound, but that Paradigm might be more in my budget. Oh, and used is good. As for budget, I'll be selling off the 300Bs and the speakers I have (these but nowhere near as nice looking -- probably not worth more than a couple hundred dollars as mine are unfinished plywood). Putting a value on the amps is tough -- they started life as Welborne Labs DRD amps using Electra-Print iron, etc. But, I have since rebuilt them to use D3a drivers (instead of 6N1p), better heater supplies, better biasing, and reworked the power supply a bit. I also had some custom (curly maple) cases made that balance the size of the iron visually. I think they are about as good as a 300B SE amp can be made, but, they don't say Cary on the side so their value is inherently a bit lower. Anyhow, let's optimistically say that I can get $1500 out of the above, I can build whatever amp I decide on with mostly existing parts for ~$300, and that I don't want to spend everything left on the speakers (using some of the money for a VortexBox, or a tablet to control things with). Suggestions?

Yes, because in the days when copystands were in common use, film with an ISO in the single digits with reciprocity failure issues setting in after just a few seconds was common. That datasheet recommends 4x 200W bulbs, 1 sec exposure, and ~f/8.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

Does anyone have a suggestion on finding a top loading, internal, sata, dvd rom or burner that could be used in a custom computer case? There are plenty of external dvd burners, but I am not sure how easy it would be to incorporate one into a different case. Thoughts?

My wife left her Incredible on the train. Any suggestion of an Android phone that can be had for not too much money that will work with Verizon. Does not need to be bleeding edge, just good enough to work in a pinch.

Happy Birthday!

Interesting. It looks like the precision of 0805 resistance is up to 1% in the simulation.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Nope.* I also regularly see RCN trucks on our street, and there is a billboard a block away, but we can't get that either. We used to have regular AT&T DSL, but it was a little too slow in the end. * edit: Er, maybe. In keeping with AT&T's standard level of competence, going through the website differently, it might be available.

Fwiw, and to offer a counter to this, I absolutely hate the SB (here's my last rant on the subject from a while back http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60755 so maybe things have changed). I hate it so much I can't even make coherent posts about how much I don't like it. Well, what I can't stand is the squeezebox server. To be sure, there is a certain segment for whom I am sure it works great. If you just want to click an album and play it, then it is great. But, if you are like me, have a large music collection full of stuff you have forgotten about, and like to accidentally discover stuff, then it is really miserable. An example -- in Winamp, I can type "my" into the search box and instantly see that I have music from Emmylou Harris and "Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris", plus a bunch of other stuff like "My World 2.0 by Justin Bieber" (that's a joke). But, I can ctrl+click on just those two that I am interested in, quickly see a list of the tracks, and queue up what I want by dragging and dropping. In SBS, you'd have to brows to "e" in artists, click on Ms. Harris, click on a particular album, then individually click tracks to add them. If you then wanted to get the other album, you'd have to go to "m" and do the same thing. Then, if you wanted to reorder your queue, you have to do it slowly track by track. Maybe this works if you run SBS on a quadcore i7, but I don't. Indeed, I don't run it on anything anymore because I can't stand the process of using it. Maybe the android control, or Moose makes this a little better, but it is still a pain. Though, this looks promising http://www.thejavashop.net/bjj/index.shtml, thoug it looks better for MPD than SBS. Edit: maybe this is the core of the issue for me http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=403964&postcount=43

There were a couple of winamp controllers, but Winamp sent them cease and desist letters for trademark infringement. I guess one is back up (aWARemote). Possibly an option, but the requirement to run windows on a basically headless computer and to keep winamp running all the time is aggravating. Digging around, finding a way to do seamless remote windows is really tricky. Citrix has a solution, but it is expensive. Windows server 2008 can do it (via RDP 6), but again, it is expensive. RDP is the way that you can run seamless applications under a windows virtual machine on windows 7, but it does not look like you can do it across a network w/o the server version. There is a version of VNC that can, but it is only windows, and would require being logged in on the remote computer. There is also NX or NeatX but probably no Android client (even though the latter is a Google product) as you still need X11. But, I think there may be a good solution in MPD. There are a couple of Android clients out there, or I may dust off Eclipse and write my own. But, it looks like it could run on a headless BSD box w/o X installed.

Happy Birthday!

Gambling is for people who don't understand mathematics. I really dislike Comcast for all sorts of reasons, but it is kind of the only game in town in Chicago. AT&T is a pain for internet, and I tried Clear, but I could not get a good enough signal. Maybe Verizon will build a new 4G antenna nearer me that will work better. The biggest issue with Comcast is that their DVRs are just terrible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/arts/music/poly-styrene-brash-frontwoman-of-x-ray-spex-dies-at-53.html?_r=1&hpw “Poly Styrene’s voice on ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!’ was the most exhilarating voice I ever heard — it was all body,” said Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!