Knuckledragger

Nice vintage Quad 303s with a side of ...a Bose soundbar. O_o Are 303 amps stereo? I thought they were monoblocks.

In the parlance of our times, new subwoofer placement meta just dropped.

I'm really glad that these speakers aren't yet more e-waste. The planet sure doesn't need it. Also, speaker porn: Via reddit. This fella has really good taste in hip hop. Also boomer folk.

That's really neat, but I am suspect of any device that requires an app to make full use of its features. We're already seeing things from "smart" bulbs to door locks to ...musical Christmas lights that no longer work because the app that controlled them is no longer on the Android/iOS store. I'd not want to be the owner of two chunks of $4000 e-waste.

So for the last 24 hours I've been toying with the idea of buying a refurb'd D3S. They're not that expensive, and a fraction of the price of a new Canon mirrorless. Insane high ISO performance. 12MP is fine for me. As I mentioned I have Dinny's old Nikon 50mm, which I have not used in the 15 years I've owned it. I also have a super neat Nikon 75-150mm F/3.5 E zoom (it has lousy CA, but the best bokeh I have ever seen.) Well that idea is officially dead. I did some reading and (re)learned that it's not a good idea to mount M42 lenses to Nikon bodies. Nikon's flange depth is the issue. M42 lenses cannot reach infinity focus without an optical adapter that acts as weak tele-extender and reduces image quality. Canon does not have this problem. I have an army of M42 glass. From amusing crap (Yashika 50mm F1.9, a very beat up Ashai Super Takumar 50mm F/1.4) to stunning and historic optical achievements (Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 135mm F/3.5, Tair 11A 135mm, Meyer Orestor 135mm F/2.8, Orestegor 200mm F/4, Orestegor 300mm F/4). Yes, I have more manual 135mm primes than a used camera shop and it's not like 135mm is a particularly useful focal length. Stop looking at me like that. The point here is there is no way in H E double hockey sticks that I am giving up all my manual lenses. I'd sooner buy a refurb'd 5D Mk II and I kind of hate that body (it was a sign of Canon going in the completely wrong direction: high MP count, lousy high ISO performance.) My Meyer-Optik Orestor 135mm F/2.8 attached to a friend's Rebel digital body in '09. One zebra ring is focus, the other is aperture preset. The Orestor has a 15 blade aperture. This shot was taken with my 30D and my Tair 11A, which has a 22 blade aperture. The Meyer-Optik Orestegor 300mm F/4 tank shell of a lens mounted to my Rebel K2 film body in '08, not far from where I'm sitting now. It has a 19 blade aperture. All of these lenses with insane number of aperture blades allow for absolutely sublime "bokeh shaping." It's so heavy it more or less mandates a tripod and still subject. I've mentioned this before but the 300mm Orestegor is a medium format lens with its own 35mm adapter. I've always wanted to buy an old Pentacon Six or whatever body and try out the 300mm with double the FoV and same DoF. I have told myself I'm not allowed to buy any more film cameras until I've built a darkroom. [I'm nearly 50 years old. I probably will not live to build a darkroom, but it's not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.] Photo of the Tair 11A's aperture by Simon's utak on Flickr. The 300mm Orestegor's aperture as captured by SteveFE on Flickr. I don't have any photos OF the Jena Sonnar, but I have a few taken with it (what an odd idea): Study of a bar ...thingy. ISO3200 on my 30D, which in general sucked at that ISO. Note how sharp the metal detail is and how pleasing the OOF areas are. The truth is, I have definitely not used the Sonnar enough. It's probably the best of the bunch from an optical perspective. Bonus, SteveFE holding his Orestegor in 2006, propped up against his car so he doesn't fall over: Me with the same lens, doing an imitation of Steve in 2009: If the lens looks smaller when I hold it, that's because I have freakishly oversized mitts. TL;DR: All digital camera bodies are ultimately disposable. Glass is forever. I have a thing for lenses with a silly number of aperture blades. I'm sticking with Canon.

When the Nikon D3 came out in 2007, I looked at those ISO speeds and considered selling all my Canon gear to jump ship. 12MP was enough for me at the time and it still is. Back then I was shooting in a lot of low light situations. I never did make the jump to Nikon (though I did buy a 50mm F/1.8 from Dinny). The most important lesson my father ever taught me was when he wasn't even talking to me. He was explaining something to another antique dealer and he wanted to convey that what one would, could or should have done really had no bearing on the current situation. Or, in the man's own words "Woulda coulda should don't mean shit!" I still kind of wish I'd bought a D3.

It's exactly what you think it is.

Hokai, I'm gonna send out PMs in a few. I have a use for both (800s and 650s). Thanks so much!

So I finally finished this roll of Fuji Sensia 200 slide film tonight. I started it in 2011. I had last exposed a frame on it in late 2012. It's quite possibly dead from light leaks, mold, moisture, bad credit, I dunno. I'm now tasked with finding an outfit where I can mail it so I can have it developed, scanned an returned to me. Photography is truly a beknighted hobby.

As much room porn as it is speaker porn. Germany.

I have 3 sets of Sennheisers (actually more, but 3 are the subject here.) 2004 650s (long suffering, still working), 20?? 580s (the cans I use the most) and some 800s I just got from aimless1. I have a silly collection of amps: 2004 GLite Mk I, HeadRoom Balanced Desktop and the HR Millet(t) Hybrid I've mentioned recently. The first and third are SE, the middle one is dual XLR balanced. My problem is that WRT balanced headphone amps, the world has gone 4 pin XLR. I understand why. It's a less annoying arrangement. There's no shortage of Senn-to-4pin XLR cables, at all price points. There are fuck-all options for dual XLR ones. I have looked into dual (male) 3 pin XLR to (female) XLR4. Amazon has an interesting selection of Chinesium, but none of the options they have are right. There's XLR male to XLR male (cute, but useless), XLR3 female to XLR4 male (absolutely backwards) and a number of other odd arrangements. I saw one that had the right connectors, but several review said it was not wired correctly. It painfully important to have the right pins attached in adapters like this. There is one "white whale" cable that's perfect, but it's ...unavailable. There is one listing that's exactly right, but it has zero reviews or ratings, and the images make me wonder about the strain relief. Anyone on head-case have a suggestion where I could get a reasonably well main dual XLR (male) to XLR4 (female) cable that is wired correctly for balanced headphone cables and doesn't cost $180? I also need to get some SE cables, but those are fortunately much more widely available.

One thing's for certain, it sure AF won't open the pod bay doors for you.

Speaking of paying real money for things, anyone want to buy a fisheye lens? It can see behind itself. Careful, that front element is a little fragile. 130,000 Euros and counting.

I was able to source a pesky CR123A on-island. I spent considerable time cleaning the Leica C3 and reading the manual. Being a Leica product, there is no official PDF to download. Fortunately, some kind soul scanned the paper manual and put that on line as a PDF. The C3 really is a "crappy consumer point and shoot" as envisioned by Leica. It has no exposure settings. Everything is automatic. It is possible to disable the flash. Similarly, the horrific date stamp is on by default but can also be defeated. What separates the C3 from the legion of similar e-waste (besides that little round logo) is its lens. It's a weird, slow zoom, which is something I'd hate normally. Also I don't think it's possible to attach filters, which is a really big downside for a film camera. Also the aperture gets pathetically small at the long end. With that said, by all accounts it's a really good piece of glass. I loaded a 24 exposure roll of long expired Fuji ISO 200 ...something. I will probably shoot it all at the wide end (28mm.)

One of the neat things about living in such a famous place is that people do things like jump in a small airplane, fly around and photograph the town with a fisheye lens:

That's a lot of woofer.

I see this meme pop up reasonably often, often in non-audio spaces. I knew I recognized the center photo. The guy in the image is not some unmarried audio snob with too much disposable income. It's MoT Dave Lavry, as photographed by the owner of a certain headphone site in Jude of 2009. That wasn't a typo. I have never heard a single piece of Lavry kit, so I cannot comment further. What I CAN remark on is that the amp in the photo is a is an RSA Emmeline II "Raptor." The entire image takes me back to the late 00s and reminded me of a completely biased impression I made at the time. I straight up do not trust amps where the PSU is that much better than the amp chassis. It looks weird and makes me wonder why there are so few components in the amplifier itself. I know about as much about amplifier design as I do about driving Formula 1 race cars, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Neat setup completely outshone by that WTF statue.

Mr. TV Size Queen here has got his speakers pushed too far into the corners. Also, I suspect that's not a good spot for the sub.

This is going to be a long walk, and kind of a gross one. In the second half of the 00s, as everyone was ditching film, a friend gave me a Canon EOS Rebel K2. It's a very consumer grade film SLR. I put a few rolls through it, but I've never been a committed film photographer. 35mm just isn't worth the cost and effort, and larger formats require one's own darkroom. In a slightly different universe, I would shoot medium format and ULF. I took about 10 years off from photography. The reasons were many, and not all good. I've begun to pick it up on 2023. Part of that process has involved me going through all my old kit. I've carefully cleaned off my IR-modied 5D (I still need to give its sensor one last cleaning) and many of my lenses. I also unearthed the old Rebel K2. Its batteries (it uses a pair of expensive and annoying CR2s) were long dead. I spent considerable time on Amazon, looking at rechargeable options. My interest was primarily in getting a battery for the Leica C3 I picked up a few days ago. The C3 uses a single CR123(A). There are a number of well reviewed options for rechargeables, buuut ...they're considered hazardous materials and can't be shipped to a PO box. This is a recurring problem with island life. I will solve the issue of the C3 one way or another (it's too cool to not use). Even if I just buy a package of lithium CR123s and deal with their annoyingly short lifespan, it will be worth it in the short term. The K2 presents a decidedly different problem. It's not a very good camera. It was never a very good one. I do have an army of glass I can attach to it, but I don't really want to do so. With that said, there is a roll of slide film in it that I started in 2011 that I have yet to finish. I'd not bother, but most of the exposures on it were taken while I was visiting MV in 2011. I have a text file on my Google Drive detailing the date, time, location and exposure settings of all of them. I really want to finish this roll, even if there's a strong chance that the shots are no good. Slide film does not keep forever. As part of of the process of getting re-acquainted with my camera gear, I've been going through the pile of camera bags and lens cases I have amassed. A number of them were stored in an upstairs closet on my mainland house and they're a bit ...stinky. I've been emptying them out and airing them out today. The Vineyard is a very breezy place, and it clears out most odors quickly. Inside one of the camera bags was my old K2. I picked it up and made a horrible discovery. It has a shitty "rubberized" grip, and whatever coating Canon saw fit to put on it 20+ years ago has turned into black goo. Handling it is an absolute nightmare. I dug up a bottle of iso alcohol and and old rag. I spent a good 20 minutes carefully cleaning off the disgusting grip. I am pleased to announce that I am victorious over The Black Goo. Mostly. I also found an unopened pair of CR2 batteries and after 3 tries I got the K2's battery compartment open. The K2 came to life and said "Yep, still got 3 exposures here, boss." I'm gonna hafta attach my 17-40L to it and finish it off. Then I'm tasked with finding an outfit that will develop, scan and return the film to me.

Holy dog's bollocks. I just got a Leica C3 at the local second hand shop. For $6.

The reason I always write it as "Millet(t) Hybrid" is because my HRDMH was a production sample and in addition to having the "Home" upgrade, it also bears a typo: When I contacted Headroom a decade ago when I bought it, the staff member I spoke to expressed surprise that it had been sold. It still smells faintly of pot smoke.

800s landed. Preliminary tests make me think "gee, these sound pretty good." This is using my 2004 GLite Mk I and Pico DAC (quality, but ultimately humble kit.) I really need to re-tube my HR Millet(t) Hybrid serial #1 and see how it drives the 800s. What I remember is that the HRMH makes everything sound more lush.

Squeak squeak. Apple's energy efficiency is nothing short of amazing, but their marketing is crap. Squeak.