burn.

watched it with iain

More MIA

JC opened this can of wiggly things.

They are playing at the old club exit on 9 spetember...   anyone wanna go?

dave

CAF 2014

 Racks, snacks, cable lifters, footers and tube displays by Ikea USA

  

Fribees by Ikea Germany

  

This year we were helping Gary Gill the show promoter out.

a vinyl only room of course!

and the wonderful 49 cent tube displays. 

 I'll link some show coverage in the next few days so you can play where's waldo for the cable lifters and other shocking revelations.

Lois

ABC 123

reviving some old friends....

.

an old friend is now making music upstairs at the Catskill Mill...

 and an old friend made this plinth that is also making music here at the Mill...

peace,
me

Quad Progress

replaced the original panels in the other speaker with PK refurbed panels.

 Family member and fellow Junkie Steve Berger came to help.

and apparently snapped this when he finished.

 and finally the results of what was cooking the other night hooked to the PK panels.

Old tyme cooking,

Here is my latest attempt at "dinner and drinks".

Drinks

Dinner

For some reason everyone opted for cheap beer and pizza which amazed me considering the purity of the ingredients of my concoctions.

Hopefully there will be some more discerning geeks at walterfest.

another proof of concept

 

if you pester me long enough I will build it.

 

I guess I need to build another one.

Chicken or the Egg?

In keeping with the victrola horn theme.

I was always under the impression that the WE 555 came about based on the Victor Credenza.  In looking at the patents, the 555 was applied for first and also granted first.

 Both patents were done by the same attorney but the 555 was WE and the credenza transducer Bell Labs.  The firsty credenza dates back to 1925 so the patent is obviously after the fact

 

 I love the above treatment.

Just attach a needle to a diaphragm and play 78's and do I see a mini 16A hidden inside the box?

Mystery Horn Identified

A few posts down I found a horn that I was unsure of its intended use.  Walter pointed me to a similar horn and it all came together.  I was puzzled by the flat top and back and that the mounting flange didn't form a full circle to couple to the driver.

I now know the reason and I had everything upsidedown, because it wasn't meant to couple to a driver but to the above the surface parts of a victrola.

picture borrowed from lovehateadvertising.com

I have never really paid much attention to victrolas and from afar I just assumed those louvers were shelves to store your78"s

I guess you learn something new every day.

dave

New York to Washington via Peurto Rico.

Another WTF shipping experience.

how the box arrived.

how it got that way..

Flea Market Find.

Found this while scrounging  for records today and it was just too pretty to pass up.

The cast (bronze??) throat adapter weighs at least 20 pounds

 The only makings 

an odd shaped coupling.

Must have mounted flat.

that it an oak horn.

and sounds really good given the source.

Empty Boxes and Blue Tape.

 A box came in today which I thought contained 10 batteries for yellow dog's bark collar but when I opened It I was puzzled to see what appeard to be a box of broken styrofoam.  Upon a little spelunking I realized the hidden treasure. (forgotten purchase)

 after peeling off the masking tape... yes masking tape not packing tape! I saw my favorite packing aid... the blue tape.

unlike packing tape...both the masking and blue tape easily peel off and the cartridge in need of a makeover is safe.... can't wait to take a dremel to it.

In contrast to this experience I just received an order from Mouser that had all of the panasonic TSHA caps in pairs and rolled in bubble wrap.  In order to secure the bubble every exposed surface of the bubble wrap was then secured with packing tape.  I used a band saw to open them.  Here is a good lesson.  Take a prized tube and wrap it in bubble wrap and then completely cover the bubble with packing tape.  Now attempt to open it.  If everything went fine, repeat with 10 tubes.  Eventually a tube or a finger is going to take one for the team.

If you must use packing tape to secure bubble wrap, use one small piece and fold an edge of the tape over to provide an obvious access point.

Thank you for reading this installment of Ghetto Packing & Shipping 101.

dave

selfie for scale

I know things have been slow here so I am stirring up the bottom of the barrel for some content. 

 

 This is a new first order "Proof of Concept" idea that showed up the other day.  It is in the early stages and might be a total flop but people have been badgering us for this solution for years.

 

If it fails, this is all the world will see of it.  In our typical fashion, we are approaching the concept from square one and cautiously moving on from there trying to learn.

dave

his hands in the cookie jar...

I caught him!

peace,
me

recent history.

a story.

Artie.

Hong Kong DIY

I first met Ngan when he became interested in Stephie's LR phono and that was close to 10 years ago.  Since then we have become friends and he is one of the guys that is willing to try everything... that is not a typo... he does try everything.

 

He sent me these pics of his latest build which aside from the filament and power transformers use all nickel transformers.  As I recall filtering is a nickel choke input filter with a second nickel smoothing choke.  The driver is an 841 loaded with a nickel plate choke feeding a 50/300B with 5K nickel outputs.

I can't wait to see how it looks in 10 years when all the brass patinias up.

dave