Pars

Justin, Have you ever compared the Alps RK50 to the TKD CP2500? WOnder how they compare, as the CP2500 is considerably better than the Alps Blue IMHO. What about the Penny and Giles RF16 or RF11 whichever it is?

Acetone might be a bit much for this. I'm not sure what you can use that would neutralize the crap from the batteries... I would clean it out as best you can. Maybe wipe it out with some alcohol or something once you have it pretty clean. I would also take something like DeOxit or contact cleaner and clean the metal contact parts.

I fixed a guy on Head-Fi's Musiland DAC for him and had to try to deal with Pacific Valve asking them for schematics. They were total assholes, even when we determined that yes, his came from them. And they are 6 miles away from me. Standard response was to send it in... probably for a board replacement ($$). The guy I did this for is in the Army and getting divorced AND with a kid... I wouldn't do business with them personally.

It's hard enough to get TDA1541as (the MI8 whatever)... gee, I only have to come up with 8 of them? Oh, I need to match them? (not sure whether you do or not). But yeah, he does seem to know what he's doing. I can't comment on the NOS thing since I've never really listened to one... intuition and things I've read tells me no, but...

You need something like these. If you can find a brand called Bondhaus they are nice, but I also have some similar to these and they work fine. Regarding the key sets at Harbor Freight... some of these sets have really soft metal and don't take very well to much force.

I'd agree with postjack on this. If you indicated that you were going to buy them doen to requesting paypal info, the seller shouldn't have sold them out from under you, particularly without PM'ing you first to give you right of first refusal. Shitty in my book.

I had the Edison Price posts that Tkam referenced on a Hafler amp I used to have and they were very nice... I like them much better than whatever is on my Odyssey, but I'm just too damn lazy to do anything about it For RCAs (chassis mount), I've used the Daytons (Partsexpress), the Cardas CFTA (the cheap ones... MisterX turned me onto those), and some I got from diyfidelity down under which I haven't actually put on anything yet but look good (damn are they tight!). If you want to spend big bucks, my recommendation (without actually using them) would be the Vampire CM1FCB or CM2FCB which are direct gold plate over OFC copper. Only $20 a pair (actually not that bad unless you need 10 pairs...). Or there's always WBT for insane prices... The WBT Nextgen is supposedly 75 ohms when used with the corresponding cable connector, but I haven't seen anyone verify that and would attribute it to mktg. BS until I do. Even so, if you need 75 ohms, BNC is the way to go...

The 4th would be another good one to start with. I haven't listened to Bruckner much in quite awhile, but seem to recall many of my LP versions were Haitink/Concertgebeau (sp?) as well as Karajan/BPO.

Those don't look too bad. I would like to get a closer look at their standard connectors used on all but the Classical cables. They up the price quite a bit for the Neutrik Pro-Fis on the Classical model, though not to normal cable pricing

Nah, Stockhausen Never cared for any 12-tone, and argued alot with my theory professor... hehe

Interesting to see someone who listens to Schoenberg... I could never get into it, but more power to ya.

I never hear anyone talk about them, even on HF, so I assumed I was a minority... Speaking of now here is nowhere, what is your impression of the recording quality? I think it is very good, devoid of much of the compression plaguing most modern recordings, yet i do detect a bit of clipping.

The Dandy Warhols Curve Secret Machines The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and even A Flock of Seagulls (love the guitarist)

Close to the Edge was my fav as well. And in terms of musical integrity, it is a mistake to put a second rate band such as Rush in the same sentence, even with Neil Peart (who I still think is overrated). Not sure I'd put Zappa in the progressive category His music pretty much defies categorization. Seeing Zappa and the Mothers in the '70s with a relatively unknown opening band at the time called Steely Dan was a trip... them being booed offstage cuz of the headliner. Good show.

I'm also looking for some coupling caps for my Counterpoint pre. They need to be at least 1uf and ideally would be less than 20mm diameter. Mundorfs, Vcap, etc. would get crazy expensive and large at this size. The ClarityCap SA has been recommended, both by a guy on AA that does alot of mods, as well as http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html. What do you guys think of the recommendations on the humble site? I realize he is testing these in a speaker crossover, but I would think impressions there should translate. DIYcable is carrying another brand which I had never heard of, Erse PulseX. They look interesting. Of course, I could just default to the Dynamicaps that Mikey Elliot at altavistaaudio uses in his CP rebuilds, but beyond him I haven't seen glowing reviews of these. Which Vishay MKPs were you referring to spritzer? I have also read that a Rifa Evox PHE430 or 830 or something like that was well liked (IIRC, Bruno Putseys recommended these, of course, also discontinued ).

I grew up on Hendrix, Cream, the Who etc. Never really cared for the Stones past about '68 or so (sloppy playing), didn't like the Dead (though I never did go see them). Prog rock I loved at the time (ELP, Yes, etc.), most of which hasn't aged very well. ELP was amazing to see live though. Was never into Pink Floyd for some reason. I haven't heard Opeth or Dream Theatre. Flaming Lips I don't quite get, though I do have Yoshimi. I do like Radiohead, although they sometimes get out there a bit. Bjork I actually do like at times. Phish I never got into (sounded like a modern Dead somewhat to me). Mahler: listen to the 2nd. If you can't get into that, you'll be headed to the place aerius' YMCA picture in the slow forum thread portends

There's a rather interesting thread going on over on diyaudio regarding the Blowtorch (and reverse engineering it). John Curl is even participating in it. Alot of background info on why things were done in a certain way, etc. Rather long at 101 pages: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71189

You can check out PinkFloyd's site for X mods http://rockgrotto.proboards39.com/index.cgi Depends on how much you want to spend, and how much work you want to put into it. I would consider stuff such as: replace electrolytics with Panasonic FMs, as long as they aren't on the outputs of voltage regulators, which might need more ESR to be happy get rid of any tantalum caps as these tend to fail as a dead short... replace with Wimas suchg as MKS-2s replace PSU diodes with Shottkys, such as 11DQ10/31DQ10 make sure opamps are bypassed well... 100uf Pana FMs right on the V+ and V- pins to ground, possibly something like 3.3nf MKP between V+ and V-, you could also try Carlos FMs snubbers (0.1ohm SMT resistor and 3.3nf ceramic COG or NPO SMT in series, between the pins of the FMs). Leads on radial caps as short as possible. replace coupling caps with film or BlackGate NX or K series, Cerafines/Silmics, Nichicon Muse, whatever floats your boat

Wanna bet? No pics forthcoming...

http://headwize.com/projects/showfile.php?file=gilmore4_prj.htm

I'd keep checking with them... I emailed Linear Systems regarding purchasing small quantities of CRDs. Never heard back from them... then one day a package arrived... samples

I'd agree. I mainly hung out in the DIY section of head-fi, and not much of that lately. I'd just notice that someone would get banned and WTF ? No idea why... interesting to read the banned thread here...

Google: head-fi down a few days ago...

You could try these guys http://www.capacitorsplus.com/index.html Seem to be more of the corporate supplier, you know, with the $500 minimums... their quote request form does have sample as one choice on it though.