nikongod

Yes, My GF That too.

Nechama and I will be going to Montreal in about a week because I have never been and thought it could be cool. Anyone have any advice on stuff that we absolutely must see or do? Anything we must *not* waste our time seeing or doing? So far my plans involve photography in the old city, and that's about it.

I feel a wallet-fi thread coming on.

Happy Birthday!

Does anyone have any tips for getting chain grease out of the little armpit area of the frame near the wheel? Just take the wheel off? Grumbles.

SET amps do not require matched tubes. Any 2 tubes that test well, and are nominally the same thing (same physical construction) will be fine. After that there is no real need for matched tubes in an SET amp.

Try adding a notch filter at 3.5Khz and 14Khz as well. They are somewhat interactive, but once you know the frequencies to use its just a matter of getting the amplitudes. Yes, it does take a bunch of time to get it dialed in, but when you get it right its realllly cool.

Suunto FTMFW

Have you tried other headphones? Coiling the cable? Shielded interconnects? Just thoughts.

Happy Birthday

http://www.head-fi.org/t/413900/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-a-tutorial VERY long thread... I personally use pink noise (or was it white? Its been a while...) to set things up, but the 2-tone method looks cool too. There are a few spin off threads. I cant be bothered to follow everyone who does something 1% different and creates a new thread for it.

Andrew - do you have access to a parametric equilizer? There is a thread I realllllllllllllllly like on head-fi - how to eq your headphones a tutorial. Try what it says.

According to my bathroom scale 28lbs. I rode 10.6miles today. It was nice but very hilly. Not very exciting compared to some of the rides other people post, but fun for me. I was thinking of going to one of the local malls (which would be 13-14miles round trip) but decided against it a couple miles away and then took a pleasant detour to get home. Tomorrow I will ride from the NJ side of the GWB to my GF in Brooklyn which is about 17miles (ignoring any detours into Manhattan, which will probably make it closer to 20mi) and mostly flat.

RIP Denver

Thanks everyone! I'm very excited. I was afraid that it would be wobbly at low speed or hard to control, but its not too twitchy at all. I could not ride it around the hairpin turn on the GWB walk/bikeway, but it is an incredibly tight turn. I'm not sure bikes were considered when they made it as I have ever seen anyone actually go around it without putting a foot down or grabbing the railing. Large bumps in the pavement (like 1/2" or more) are rougher than the big bikes. They are so cool! I rode to the grocery store this evening, after it has been raining all day, and my pants & shoes were totally dry. Yaay!

Brompton came

Winning! Fedex came through and the new camera is here! Now I don't have to take the Nikon to Utah. Yaay! Thanks! Have you tried shooting in a car (not while driving, of course)? It's pretty fun. You have to get the light just right, but the cramped space makes getting close easy Nice soft outside light with just a little bit of fill flash bounced off the roof or through a diffusion dome thingy is NICE.

I'm getting the newer version. The GRD4 suited my style and what I want out of a compact camera quite nicely, and the GR looks like more of the same with more ISO which was always the weak point of the GRD4.

In the most perfect example of irony ever to be witnessed by man, the replacement for the most perfect travel camera will be here next Friday while I am in SLC on my annual buying trip.

There are photos of Kerry's build around. Maybe on head-fi. His layout is really nice. It is a shame that so few people are willing to venture out and P2P an amp, and awesome that you want to. The ease of modification & experimentation with a P2P amp is really liberating. Not to mention the simple ability to build things that there just aren't PCBs for. On that note, why not build a STAX ESX (Singlepower ES-1) with some tweaks to improve performance? I think the base circuit is a bit nicer.

I don't think that putting an 85mm lens on DX is ridiculous at all. That FOV is great for portraits and isolating the subject. The narrow FOV makes finding a suitable background for your subject easy and the length prevents weird facial distortions. Nice and simple. That being said, I would not discount a wide angle lens for candid shots or even portraits although it is harder to make it work. While you do need to get in close with wide angle lenses (now get at least half a step closer) you can still be quite stealth with them. With a long lens you have the disadvantage that you are CLEARLY pointing the camera at someone when you want to take their picture. With a wide you can be pointing the camera just over their shoulder (or so they think) and get them on the one side of the frame with a lovely park (or their laboratory, a car lot, or whatever) filling in the rest. As another option for stealth shooting with a wide angle lens you can also shoot without looking through the camera. It takes some practice, and you will fire off plenty of duds, but its digital just delete and try again. If you go realllllly wide you do need to pay attention to distortions, but IME this issue is blown way out of proportion. Unless you are looking to take head-shots with a 35mm or wider lens... Head to foot with a 28mm lens is close enough to fine. Because why not: I broke my GRD4 the other day. It makes me sad.

Just saying: http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/SubCategory___40000000228_200368939

IME the HD800 just do best with an amp that has "a sound." I have never been thrilled by the HD800 on a "wire with gain" style amp where stuff with character (objectively flaws) just brings them out. Like *him* or not, Rudistor likes to build amps with "a sound". AKA not wire with gain. Following that, it makes perfect sense that the HD800 would sound better with a Rudistor amp than the B22. Would they sound better still on an amp made by a competent designer of amps with sound? Probably. Could you make a buy a better sound than Rudi for less money? Heck yea.

On the note of the Park Tool Stand, and at the risk of mockery - My GF Nechama is selling a used Park Tool stand in Brooklyn. It has the nifty tray thingy, and the base (apparently that is an option!?), but the plastic inserts in the jaws are a bit worn. She is also selling the wheel truing stand, and a very cool Specialized Tire box - to keep spare tires organized.

The Brooks B17 for my incoming Brompton came today.