justin

the crappy cable, quality issues, and bean counting left a bad taste in my mouth. i prefer the HF-1.

from what i have found, laser engraving is typically charged around $85/hr. the pet tags for $2 comes out to around $10/hr due to all the downtime for setup and packaging. unless they have a highly automated system and a Chinese kid chained to the machine

Preferred by the CIA? wat.

right now, laser engrave my own parts. it's a demo unit of the 15W model here: http://rmilaser.net/...s-1064nm-ndyv04 do i really need this, as in will it pay off? right now, no, not by typical ways of looking at investments. if i double the amount of laser engraving that i do, which i should as i introduce new models and phase out the older silkscreened ones, then maybe it will. i can also add personalized engravings or start a 2nd business for engraving outside work, which may be difficult as i would have to hire & train someone, and also this machine can't do glass or wood, and engraving very large parts would be hard. on the plus side, i dont have to worry about a vendor screwing up this part of the process (Head-F1) and making it extremely difficult to fix. it will also take a couple weeks off of the duration of parts going through the vendor supply chain. to date i have spent $10,500 engraving the front/back panels of the Pico (does not count Pico Slim). The 45 BHSEs that are about to be done would be $3,870 + shipping both ways (and time to package them) for engraving. This is well above market rate IMO, but they know the quality I expect and are charging me for it. I'm confident I can get results just as good on my own, as I did receive samples of parts marked by this machine. so, with the BHSE order about to happen, i pulled the trigger on the laser engraver

i need stuff to practice on. send me stuff. also, it is simply ridiculous what people are willing to sell laser marked pet tags for. like $1.95! i can get anodized tags for 30-60 cents a piece depending on the style, and MAYBE someone could handle 5 or 6 orders per hour if you include time spent processing & shipping. and the cheapest machines out there are around $10k.

oh, that isnt here yet. i meant that i got the box that originally contained deepak and colin's RK50s

i got the big box

andy, i just emailed you because my address is different than it was a few months ago

pretty sure all the ones ive ever had look like #3

thats the exact same kind of label thats on the bags of 2SC3675 that i got from the same source. bar codes appear to be different. if the whole thing was faked i'd guess they would just be copying and pasting the same bar codes.

can you post an up close photo of some of the parts that test bad?

i will have to get one of these to test but based on HFe and appearance, i would say all of my 2SA1968 are real unless there are some fakes mixed inside the other bags i havent opened. there were 2 shipments of 2SA1968 -- 1100 pcs and then 900 pcs that followed. i am going to guess that there was a real shipment and a fake shipment. which one came first i have no idea. if KG/Birgir have pictures of the bags the parts came in i might be able to remember the 2SA1486 appear to be real they just look like they've been kicked around for 20 years while the ones from bdent were always pristine

has tyll said how long he needs to have a pair?

Larry (HeadphoneAddict) will be there and could also watch them when i'm not at the table

if any of the winners would let me, can i borrow a pair for CanJam @ RMAF if more don't arrive in time? i posted publicly a few times that i'd have a pair there, before i knew the delays would be this long...argh.

i like this >1 year advance notification!

except you can only overprepare people so many times before they stop listening. Can't remember who called it the "Storm of a lifetime" -- Obama or Bloomberg -- that was a bit much.

there's always Chinese food. they never close.

where are they giving out free flights?

i am also staying monday/tuesday, to visit a pair of laser engraving machine makers. exciting stuff.

can you loosen the screws on the standoffs and reposition the board?

i had the same issue with the Pico Slim pre-order last year. First time it's happened. They actually already had investigators that had found the Head-Fi threads. Didn't get my account frozen, but I had to talk to them on the phone for a while.

He should have just taken the payments in Mikhail's account

yeah, check again after that.