October 25. 8:45 p.m.

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peace,
me

Somebody put it better than I could.

We may not all hear or like the same thing but music is universal.

blog post with comments.

Impressions of RMAF 2013.

The show is still a blur to me but I was very happy with the sound and presentation.  I particularly like this pic posted by Kuma over at audio asylum.

more to come....what did/do you guys think?

dave

'twas the night before RMAF setup.

and dave can't sleep.  All the goodies are working....  enough of that.

here are some pics of what I'll be flying with.

 Permalloy 50 amps

which can now take 300B's

the new SUT packaging (1:20's for a Kansui in silver)

Finally the miniformer... in silver with a mocha front.

More RMAF Preview.

OK... you may ask where the hell have JJ and dave been... Well getting ready for the semi-official EMIA launch.  We teased you with the LC-1A's and here is some more of the story.  Up in the room (9009) we will be teaming with Win and his Saskia.  Fitted with a Schröder Reference and a Schröder LT.  Cartridges will most likely be a Kansui and a Panasonic Strain gauge.  Step ups will be silver and copper.  Both the Emia Phono and the Strain Gauge will be available to feed a pair of silver Autoformer Attenuators.  The amps will be the new permalloy 50/300B convertible amp.  Tubes will range from globe 50's to the new EML50 and WE 300B's.  Chris from Tel-Wire will be on hand to make sure the wires are bespoke.

As you can see there is a grease bearing 301 on the rack at the moment.  That is for the table downstairs where we will also be spinning some tunes through headphones.  The 301 will have a Siggwan arm mounted and will probably be using a 103R retipped by newcomer Andy Chong.

Silver and copper SUT's will be available as well as the new "mini-former" headphone alternative in both silver and copper.  The cans will be a very special pair of Grado HP-1000's because they were Sid Smiths personal pair that he used to design and voice the RA-1 headphone amp he designed for Joe.

Design genius and all around good guy John Chapamn will be down at the table with me with some new toys of his own.  The opti-load is a remote controlled load resistor which we can demonstrate through phones and what would a show be without Blackman Brew?  As I type, 96 Blackman are heading up to Denver.  The booth will also have an Audio Deske cleaner to keep our vinly clean so bring music.  Finally lets not forget Thai food Friday night after the meet and greet at Garcias.

RCA LC-1A LS-11's at RMAF

Hey all.  We will be splitting a room with Saskia II creator Win Tinnon and for a quick preview... the 200+ pound slate Saska II idler will be spinning with a Schröder arm (LT and Reference).  Cartridges will be a Kansui, Premium Be and a Panasonic Strain Gauge.  Electronics will be EMIA (Silver SUT's and autoformers) with the Permalloy 50 amps feeding these.

Tel-Wire will be hooking it all together.   We are vinyl only so bring some of your favorites and stop by to say Hi!

Nelson meets Le Cléac’h

I sent a lowther reformer to Ryan and he responded with this a few years later.  Pay it forward my friends.... pay it forward. 

Tribeca Akihabara

With all the kit laying about on the floor last Saturday, how can I pick any other title for this entry.

Mesh 10 style

 Schroder 9" & 12"

 Siggwan

 obscure dyslexic 50's

of course we did listen to music through a Kansui / Zero mounted on a FR-66 strapped to a cotter into a silver LR phono, Silver LR crossover and of course silver Chapman autoformers.  To do all that silver justice the finest vintage 50 was used for the evening.

a little scrapper

Here is my oldest taking a nap with his pay for his days work.  I proposed to him that if he stripped all the copper wire of my junk bobbins he could then take it to the scrap yard.  I haven't put it on a scale but it feels like about 75 pounds and at $2 a pound its not a bad days work for an 11 year old.

DHT LCR phono...

We have a new friend in norway undertaking the bold task of a DHT phono stage.  It will consists of an EML-30 through a 49% nickel 1:1 feeding a 8-9K (not sure of the actual impedance) LCR EQ.  The output of the EQ will hit a 45 into another pair of 49% nickel 1:1's

The box of my share goes out tomorrow and here are the contents.

I mentioned he was a friend and even though we just met, how can he not fit in.... my bet is he is already a junkie!

dave

Thyratron, Megatron and Forevertron Oh My!

In keeping with the triptych... which one of these things doesn't belong here?... I'm not sure I know.

To complete the Forevertron trilogy here are two more stolen shots with some info...

I wonder if the 555's served as mortars in those two cannons.

Go to the Library.

We don't care what library you go to... just learn.

Don't blindly follow...  LEARN.

 enough preaching and onto the facts.... a friend sent me to the link to a .pdf of one of these books.

 they are both the same book with a couple of revisions between the two.  Like most book collectors, I want the earliest edition... not for absolute value but for the integrity of the information.

Total props are given in the second printing for credit.

Then comes the library tag and the question of why was this copy ripped from the public and sold for $20? 

CUT.... another book with the same sticker.

This one belongs to Blackie.  I just have it on loan from his private library. ..he did me the solid with no late fees

dave

Which Hunt?

I mentioned an elusive 10 that may actually sound wonderful a few posts back and in searching through my stash, I came up with 4 boxes all from the hunting grounds of yore.

I'm not much for pointing out the irony so here is a picture of three of the 4 tubes that came from those boxes and a bogey 10 for reference.

dave

Three states of sound.

thoriated, oxide and mesh.  Oh My!

CAF from the beginning.

I think this picture sums it up.

Thursday afternoon we needed some stunt speakers and Milo shows up as our savior.  Total props go out to Milo, Barret and Beau for going above and beyond for the family!

The next test after getting functional sound was to get the strain gauge mounted on the Schroder and the Shilabe on the Siggwan.  The first part was easy but the headshell of the siggwan was about 3mm thicker than the previous headshell so the hardware just couldn't make it.  Mind you now we are talking M2.5 X 25mm hardware in hand and it was midnight.

The solution came up at 8am the next morning (after greeting Barret and Win at 5am and putting them to bed) where the local hardware store next to the whole foods actually had some 4-40 parts that were 1.25" (32mm) long... and in BRASS!.  The rest is just a simple example of problem solving.

 The first problem to address was to turn a pan head slotted screw to a makeshift socket head.  Next was making a hex nut round.  I thought everything was golden until I realized there was zero option to adjust the cartridge due to the overall diameter of the 4-40's.  If it were my cartridge, I would have drilled the body out but that wasn't an option (yet).

A little more work "schroder style" in the bathroom of a hotel I was able to dig into my manhattan portage bag of tricks to get that puppy mounted.

I know the moral of the story is to simply increase the breadth of the cartridge mounting hardware I travel with but sometimes the story is worth the effort and all it took was some creativity and a few abrasive wheels.

Moving backward to my first CAF post.... I'll leave you with the first place mike started blasting vinyl on sunday.

because we have not mentioned Western Electric in far too long....

I felt the need to post this:

which makes no sense until I add this:

it was a gift... and the funny thing is that I actually needed the fork... I only had one here... now I can invite a friend over... you see, I have been here in New York for about ten weeks... working on the house... the barn... getting close... and in a few short days I go back to get the family!  I can't wait... if they are *really* appreciative and helpful, I *may* let them use my fork... 

peace,

me

Triode Pete

I had the pleasure of being invited to Triode Pete's house for a Rave.  I met pete a couple of years ago and a number of things we talked about overlapped but it wasn't until I needed some CO2 for the Blackman Brew at the CAF last year did all all come home.  Pete is family and I hope the following pictures show you why.

Lets start with 50's in his Loesch and Wiesner amps.

The amp let us listen to 300B's 50's and 10's and for the first time I actually heard a 10 I liked...  (and no I'm not saying anything other than it was from the dark lantern camp and it was not a globe)

Maybe some of the magic came from one of Arthur's custom crossovers for the Tannoy 12" gold monitors.

Next time around, I think it can be arranged to bring the full compliment of tubes to amuse these amps.  The mesh 10's and 50's  will stay on static display until the anjeo flows and the experts calculate the risk. 

All of those ancient tube and tannoys were listened to through a digital front end in a "den" system.  If you wandered out and found the main system there was vinyl!  Anyone with an astute eye will see the genrad supplies that evolved into the tempo electric phono.

It is also important to note the pet friendly main room listening environment transducers.

Of course they were  powered by  Loesch and Wiesner.  This time a 45/ 2A3 unit with some vintage biplates singing.  

I'm confidant that the blur is shek's 46% talking.