Pars

First time I've seen it. Nice improvement, as emailing your order to them was a massive PITA IMO.

x2

Nah, this is one of thos '80s slim designs made to appeal to the SS peeps looking at Levinson, etc., so it is very space challenged. I don't want to destroy the resale value, so if I want better I'll just get rid of it and buy something else (or build it). I do have an Aleph P1.7 partially done (and languishing)

Ahh, gotcha. When you said that about the ccs, I either missed why or whatnot. There is another ss piece in here: SA-5/5.1 Level I Power Supply Upgrade. As in the audio stage, I install far better resistors and film capacitors, and upgrade the aluminum electrolytic capacitors, using Black Gate Powdered Graphite capacitors. The solid-state constant-current source for the error amplifier tube is eliminated, removing the final source of "transistory" colorations. Price for SA-5/5.1 Level I Power Supply Upgrade: $1150 Add $110 setup fee to this price if not done with an "LSP" upgrade.) A Siliconix CR160 CRD is used here, protected by a 91V zener from getting over-voltaged. I was thinking about replacing this with an IXYS DNR2450 (PN off the top of my head, bought one but haven't tried it yet) so I could get rid of the zener, etc.

Actually I had been talking to Doug in a thread over on hf regarding that. I think it was nikongod in chat a couple of weeks ago here who said he thought it would be a bad idea after looking at the schematic.

Someone seems a bit obsessed...

I would agree that if it could be properly implemented, a linear arm should have it over a conventional arm from a geometric perspective. I had to laugh as this reminded me of the Sony POS table I had in the '80s in between Thorens' with a mechanically driven linear arm. Which would mechanically drive itself into the groove wall and skip occasionally. Trying to deal with Sony service and finally giving up (after realizing they weren't able to do anything about an engineering defect) was the beginning of the end for me and Sony.

I would agree that wheelchairs suck. I think the issue isn't his use of a Segway for normal activities, but its use in the context of being around fragile, easily damageable things. Add to that either his lack of fine control of the Segway, or his lack of caring (from what it sounds like). I would also think that for someone in his position (founder/CEO of a successful company and the possible accompanying ego), that he may view the things he was around at Canjam as only a matter of a bit of money to replace.

Window motor and regulator for my son's Accord. Dealer wanted $850 to fix it...

I hope Lily had a happy birthday, and congrats to you (any your wife) on making it for the year! My oldest son's first year seemed like an eternity to me; second child it flew by, go figure.

I hate to tell you this Mark, but the 6th case up has an out of sequence value on it If only my shit was as organized, however

Looks like a thermocouple at 59.5 deg, so you are temp testing something. Something at 30V 150mA; perhaps one of the output devices?

Yeah, I figured there had to be more to it than just being pretentious as I would think carting that thing around and maneuvering it would get old real quick. Ditto on cable and other product bashing, however

This player uses a KSS-281A laser unit, which seems to be about as obtainable as a Philips CDM-9 Pro, etc. As in, not. CD-Player-DAC-Transport List

Those look great. Really nice work Nate!

BRMC Baby81

Not sure. I thought it was Manley, not Manely...

A few pics ahead of that one: Speaking of tubes... Evanna Manely with the Manely Labs integrated and iPod dock. Manely... heh

Yes. You need to ensure that these are bandwidth limited so the bits don't go too fast and pull you out of NOS... Charles Hansen is probably the origin of this. He claims that they change and degrade the sound over time.

x N... congrats!

Why wouldn't that surprise me if true, knowing audiophool companies... I'll bet they went for quite a bit more than a pair of PCM63P-Ks did too (oh yeah, forgot the special matching and nymphs of the rainforest blessings, etc. etc. ).

Yep. That's a given

Hope you have a great time Colin!

The CEC drive is belt-drive, correct? I can see belt-drive on a turntable but I thought CD drives change speed depending upon where on the disc it is reading? This is something that I would not think belt-drive would be good for. There are probably a lot of other differences in the SPDIF interfaces, etc. as well.

I'd agree. When I got back into hifi, I started down the cable path (ala audioasylum, risch, etc.). Reading the newsgroups (rec.audio.*), I ran across some posts by Bruno Putzeys, at that time a digital engineer for Philips, who posted that yes, he could hear differences in cables, but as an engineer it bothered him because instinctively he knew that he shouldn't be hearing these. He went on to form a hypothesis that these differences existed mainly because of impedance mismatches. Not sure if he ever did anything about that. But at any rate, my view of cables is that they are expensive tone controls. This along with my experiences led me to conclude that going down the expensive commercial cable path was not for me. Sure, I DIY cables from time to time (latest neotech UPOCC jon risch silver-recipe construction type, similar to what spritzer does). Do I think they sound different? Don't know; I put them in the system; they sound good; I leave them alone;D Quality construction, materials etc., yes. Crazy prices? No. And sure Marc, you start playing around with passive filters (essentially) on cables, you can make them sound different. And probably upset some electronics in the process. Think MIT cables with their little boxes at the ends.