Torpedo

I think it's easier, healthier and more affordable controlling your snoring. Plus if it's got worse lately and you may be suffering from sleep apnea episodes.

Music playing from "the amp" even with no load (which I completely agree is very harmful for tube amps) is due to mechanical resonance of the OPTs. They vibrate harmonically with the signal they're fed. This can get worse if you play music through the amp with no load. This happens because the primary becomes a too low impedance for the tubes output, then a very high current demand happens which is what may end up damaging the amp. This high current going through the OPT primary excites the resonance of the core even more, then the music coming from the trafo sounds louder. Just make this test. Get a test CD with some high frequency tones from 10KHz and up. You'll notice that these are usually the ones that produce the loudest sounds. I've witnessed this many times when I've visited a friend of mine who builds amps, and he's testing them. Kind of scary hehehehe. Some OPT "sing" more than others, it depends on the core materials and shape, also how they're shielded, etc. EI core trafos are said to have this resonant effect more than others, specially if they have those metal caps attached with bolts, leaving an air chamber beneath, which acts as a resonance one. The metal cap, if has the appropriate size and thickness, becomes a sound radiator increasing the level of the sound.

Elephas, what EL34 are you using? I'd recommend you to try the JJ E34L. From the EL34 I've tried, they're the ones with the best bass response, deep, bodyful and well textured. Energic. But this is in my tube integrated for the speakers. The JJ KT77 are no slouch either, but they're less refined in the midrange. The problem with JJ E34L is that they have changed something in their production, and are less reliable. Quite frequently some of the pins loses contact with the thin wire going to the internals of the tubes, then stops working. Sometimes dropping solder inside the hollow pin fixes it, but not always. I have no experience with 6CA7 type of tubes, none of my devices uses them

Hehehehe, I wonder that too, but my upper canines don't seem to grow, and I keep more interested in feminine areas other than the neck.

Well, then there's not much else which can be done. Crossing fingers for the vaccine shots to work at some point, decreasing you sensitivity. Moving to the desert would work for your allergies, but not for mine. I'm allergic to sunlight

Of course it's inflammation of the mucosa, which leads to mucus overproduction and air flow blocking. To improve that I suppose you use some antihistamines, corticosteroid nasal sprays and all the usual treatment battery which is necessary to alleviate the condition. I suppose you visited at some point an ENT specialist or an allergist. Otherwise do it before the allergy season starts. We can't really cure allergy in most cases, but proper treatment planning may provide a lot of relief.

Same here

Freddie Redd - Shades of Redd (needledrop) Before, The Beatles - Sargent Pepper's... (mono, japanese pressing)

Yes, the ear wax producing cells respond to pressure and mechanical contact, in the same way nasal mucus producing cells respond to dust, moisture and temperature changes. If your rubbing your ears is frequent and kind of "hard" that may stimulate wax production, thus explaining your increased wax production while suffering the allergy attacks. If your ears get blocked for nasal congestion, this is due to a mismatch between the middle ear pressure and the atmospheric one, which should be the same. When nasal cavities aren't blocked, atmospheric pressure, nasal cavities pressure and ear one, are all the same. As soon as you have in your nose a different (usually lower) pressure than atmospheric, this transfers into the middle ear which develops lower pressure than atmospheric, then the ear drum gets "sucked" into the middle ear, doesn't vibrate as it should, so mild hearing loss and the blocking sensation develop. In such condition, you'd need to firstly clean your nose as much as possible until air flows through it rather freely. Then performing the Valsalva's maneuver, which consists in blocking your nostrils, and with the mouth closed, blowing air out (air which of course won't go anywhere outside) carefully until your ears "plop" and pressure balances. It's the same maneuver divers do when going deep into the sea. If you put too much pressure it will ache, so it's important doing it carefully and slowly until you feel the air gets into your middle ears and blocking sensation disappears. If you go too far, you may feel a different blocking sensation due to the pressure in the middle ear being higher than atmospheric. In this case, you just need to block your nostrils, close your mouth and swallowing saliva twice or more times, this will balance pressure in the opposite way than Valsalva's maneuver. All this will work as long as your Eustachian tubes aren't swelling and they allow air circulating through them. Usually ET blocking won't happen on most allergic conditions. I hope this helps

Yep, you can use it mixed 50% with saline solution if bubbling of peroxide alone is excessive. 4 drops twice a day for 4-6 days is what we recommend our patients before "de-waxing" their ears, when big occlusive corks grow. For normal wax production used once a week should be enough to keep ears pretty clean.

Mine keeps OK on Firefox, but sometimes gets deleted on IE. Well, it did on older versions, not from 7.something :/

Matt Bianco - Hifi Bossanova This band were one of my favs in the 80's, I was told they released a new album this morning. Not bad so far, listening to title track on Spotify.

Yum yum, Dexter is back

Whoa, that's awesome!! Congratulations Birgir

I don't know of medical conditions related to allergy which increase wax production, but I don't know everything. Wax production is increased mostly by mechanical stimulation (yet another reason for not using Q-tips nor hard mold IEMs) and other circumstances like dusty environment. Maybe the same allergens worsening your nasal condition can stimulate wax production somehow. Or it's possible that having your nose blocked produces some ear congestion, so you inadvertently touch your ears more, like after swimming to pull the water out, or use Q-tips more often.

Happy Birthday

Do you mean that nasal discharge goes out from your ear canals too? If so, you'd need to have your ears inspected.

This is why I won't ever use custom IEMs. I don't like pushing the wax too deep into the ear canal, and even less making it too close to the drum. Universals don't get as deep inside. Moreover you can clean regularly the universal's tips as thoroughly as you want, or even replacing them , but you can't apply the same "treatment" to custom molds having the phones built in. There's not a safe way to use Q-tips unless you just use them to dry the pinna and the outermost part of the canal. For that you don't need Q-tips, a good towel and your fingertips will do the same more safely.

Yep, in this I agree with Josep. As a toy to learn how changing frequency response alters our music perception, the Ultracurve is funny. Even for speaker listening in very complicated rooms having big modes which you can't control by placement and room treatments, it is also more than funny, can become a cheap solution. With some trade offs, but everything in life has them. However in Monkey's case, I don't think the differences he notices among his DACs are frequency response related. Most DACs have the same frequency response curves with slight variations which alone won't explain how different we perceive their sound. Two of the areas where I find most of the differences are bass response (more in the bass quality: impact, body, texture, coherence, integration, etc) and voices rendition. Most DACs measure the very same from 20Hz to 8KHz, however some are very distinguishable -the Benchmark DAC-1 for instance-. I still have to find what measurable parameter has a correlation with the sound. These are its measurements as published by Stereophile. I can't see there what makes it so recognizable compared to others

I'm interested in the T50v1. It's one of those phones that I've never listened to, which I believe can be special in some ways. Are you selling them NoNoNoNoNoNo? If so, please keep in touch

I've "listened" to it in several occasions and I find it far from transparent even in its by-pass mode on digital link. The analogue outputs are pure crap. But it's very affordable...

Yep, but you're speaking at about 1dB attenuation at 20KHz, 3dB in the worst case, then not more than 1-2dB at 16KHz, which while may have some effect in the midrange perception, I guess it's not the kind of midrange emphasis we're speaking about. EQ can achieve some things, but not everything. BTW the thing Azazel recommended is craptacular IMHO.

While Boomana is right and the cells producing wax are in the outer part of the external ear canal, in its outer most part where some hairs grow, there are sweat producing cells. Also in all the pinna. That liquid can come from one of several of the following: - Condensation from the humid air kept in the canal between the mold and the drum. - Sweat from the outer most part of the canal, or even the pinna leaking inside through any tiny leak that might be. - Liquid that was into the canal before inserting the molds. - Suppuration from any external ear infection (not very likely since you don't have pain nor other symptoms, moreover that's purulent, not water clear). - Other causes that would require an eardrum perforation.

you sick people

Oh well, I'll wish you an early Happy Bday too