thebes

Some static type tube noise as the tubes warm up is normal. Feedback does not sound normal to me. However, you are supposed to let any tube pre warm up a bit before engaging the amp. Obviously, with this type of sequence, it's almost impossible to tell that the pre is having problems using your ears alone since without the amp powered on you have no signal. Just as a pre-caution I'd open it up and re-seat the tubes, and check all the inter-connects. If you are getting some distortion while using the volume or other, pots, I'd lube the pots (they are the things with the knobs attached). My PV3 is long since gone, but given their age, problems can crop up.

Dear Gentlemen, Thank you so much for breathing life back into a post with only one trenchant, Thebesonian, sentence. Granted. sometimes, I have been known to complain, whine, and otherwise pound my feet on the floor while spinning in a circle, for perceived injustice in the firmament which has only a passing resemblance to a legitimate complaint. However, Queen was fun, original, entertaining, great beats, wondrous vocals and usually a catchy line or two or three. To have their uniqueness manhandled by a bunch of low-level commercial, talentless wanna-bees, is almost to much to bear. I have contacted certain individuals from along ago phase when I was a well known bad actor, and have put certain er, um contracts into place which should resolve things so this assault of the senses will not occur again, while providing some much needed work for my local mortuary.

Shop all your insurance every three years. Overall property claims are maybe up a bit this year, but auto claims are way down, although highway deaths are much higher than they should be. The bottom line is that insurance companies have fat profits right now so they can underwrite prices better if they can pick up a new customer while doing it. The last thing in the world to ever have any loyalty to is an insurance company. Period.

Sorry about the number of 0'rama posts. Had a few extra lying around. Although you can't really have enough 0-ramas available to employ at a moments notice. I find it adds a certain jest, energy, dare-I-say, sauciness to a conversation. Couldn't find an online video of this song to post, but my former mentor, John Lee Hooker (he taught how to me, er um...) raises male BS to a whole new level with this song. Don't believe me? Here's the opening lyrics: 4 Hours Straight / Blues Man Songtext von John Lee Hooker, Jr. Yeah. We gonna make this a long play out. Uh-huh. Tonight one of you ladies are gonna get real lucky. Tonight I'm gonna make love to one of you for four hours straight. There is no need to look surprised or perplexed or astonished For you know who you are. You will experience a brief moment of indecision and reluctance For fear that your name will be spread all over town. However it is not necessary for your anxiety for I am not interested in knowing who you are So we will keep your name anonymous. We will call you Jane. Yeah. You need to know that we will not be using any sexual mechanics to arouse your genitalia. Neither will we be using any ginsing to enhance the longevity of the physical encounter. Yeah. You might as well call in sick, hang a sign on your front door Saying I'll be back in four hours straight. You will be inspired to introduce me to your girlfriends However I am not interested in meeting anyone. Before we begin our four hour journey

It is my understanding that there are some people who are retrieving sunken logs from the bottom of the Hudson River that go back almost to the time of the founding of New Amsterdam (New York City today). Almost all of Upstate New York (especially the Adirondacks) was essentially stripped bare and floated down that river to build that metropolis. For not that much money I could buy a retrieved tree or two, mill it, shape it, put a hole in it's bottom and sell it for less than a Benjamin and still make a profit. I would, of course, not market it with crap like "it imparts a sonicaly submursive sound that makes you float above the water".

As we all know, the world of audio marketing is full of blather, lies, scandalous mis-representation and a host of other scams, flim-flams and cons. Here's the latest to amuse me. A $5,600 (gee-what a deal!) record clamp. The price alone is an assault on the senses, but the verbiage to justify the price is both hilarious and nonsensical. Enjoy: "A legendary Shun Mook product now being made in very, very limited numbers. This record clamp is made from extremely rare pieces of dried ebony briar. The extra heavy century old ebony root which were immersed in the swamps of Africa has a unique power that no other wood possesses. The vibration generated by the diamond stylus in the vinyl groove besides inducing an electroflux through the phono-cartridge also excites the ebony molecules, causing it to resonate. This in turn is feed back through the stylus and is reproduced as expanded sound staging, enhanced separation, sharpened focus and enriched tonal balance of the music. "

Flipping through the channels last night and I in-advisedly stopped at this program special: The Queen Family Singalong ABC, 8pm This fourth installment of the Singalong franchise is hosted by Darren Criss and features celebrities belting out an hour of hits from the legendary rock band Queen in honor of the group’s 50th anniversary, and inviting home audiences to sing along. Among the performances are “The Show Must Go On” by Adam Lambert, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Derek Hough featuring Alexander Jean, “Under Pressure” by Fall Out Boy, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Jimmie Allen featuring Miss Piggy, “We Will Rock You” by JoJo Siwa and Orianthi, “We Are the Champions” by OneRepublic, “Somebody to Love” by Pentatonix and “Don’t Stop Me Now” by cast members of Broadway’s The Lion King and Aladdin. I was soon mesmerized by this spectacle. The talent was beyond mediocre, the staging was abysmal and despite the weird costumes of some of the performers, there was absolutely no mention of Freddie's sexual orientation, probably so Christian parents would let thier kids watch it. Now I'm going to have to forgo listening to Queen for quite awhile, until my sketchy memory washes this assault on music from my mind.

A few songs would imitate that run in groove noise at the start of their own songs and then be dead silent (background-wise) for the rest of the cut.

Silly thing, but not as wacky as some of the special effects and takes on sounds that exist on vinyl Songs deliberately recorded in mono of stereo albums, mikes on 80's music that make the singer sound like she's in a speak easy in the 1920's. One of my favorites is car noises. Engines rumbling, brakes squeaking, vocals sounding like they are coming out of your car radio. I could go on and on.

Online. Starting October 25. Klipsch's own website is selling them for $960, so I presume this is a pretty good deal.

I'm going with Mary Ann because I met her once, at the opening of a restaurant. I was of friend of the owner and she was a friend of Mary Ann. Mary Ann kindly agreed to be there to help launch the place.

Fun music from a special era. I salute you my Commander!

Yawn. Time to shake things up!

From Jubilees to Heresy's. Sad. So sad. It's terrible when one of our members suffers from EBAWS (emasculated by a women syndrome). Granted this affliction is more common than Covid, but still one cannot but hope that someday, after dropping a needle on that seldom played song" "Born Free" a mental shift will take place that will bring our errant friend back to the right side of the speaker size equation.

Also the man behind the A-10 and other ground support aircraft. I hope you all have heard at least one of his pressing in your journey to audio nirvana. Pierre Sprey, a 1960s Pentagon “whiz kid” who was a formidable intellectual force in military analysis and weapons development, often tangling with top defense officials to improve U.S. military readiness and weapons development, died Aug. 5 at his home in Glenn Dale, Md. He was 83. The cause appeared to be a sudden heart attack, said his son, John Sprey. The French-born Mr. Sprey (pronounced “spray”) was a multilingual polymath whose interests encompassed history, engineering and literature. A Baltimore Sun profile declared that he “may well be the most fascinating person you’ve never heard of.” In later years, he established a recording studio and jazz record label in a tumbledown house and produced dozens of recordings known for their exquisite high-fidelity audio. He devised a homemade recording system that employed extremely thin wires, battery-powered microphones and a two-track Sony reel-to-reel recorder weighted with lead. He had a restored 1911 Steinway piano in the front parlor of an old country house called Mapleshade in Upper Marlboro, Md. He had made amateur recordings of Washington jazz singer Shirley Horn, who came to Mr. Sprey’s house to play his piano. “One night she was sitting at my piano and fell in love with it,” he told The Washington Post in 1996. “She said, ‘P. baby, I want to do my next album on this piano and I want you to be my engineer’ … I enjoyed recording Shirley so much, I decided to hang out my shingle.” Mr. Sprey named his record label Mapleshade and recorded primarily jazz and blues musicians, including saxophonists Clifford Jordan and Hamiet Bluiett and pianists Walter Davis Jr., John Hicks and Larry Willis. He placed rubber baffles on the walls and ceiling and turned off all the lights, refrigerators, furnaces and electronic devices to obtain as pure a sound as possible. "Something important is happening in Upper Marlboro,” a CD Review critic wrote. “To sit down with a small stack of your very first Mapleshades is a revelation.” A 1997 recording of New York’s Arc Choir singing the gospel tune “Walk With Me” was sampled on Kanye West’s hit “Jesus Walks.” Mr. Sprey said the royalties were enough “to support 30 of my money-losing jazz albums.” Mr. Sprey later moved to two other “crumbling old wood and brick farmhouses” in Maryland, his son said, and often cooked for visiting musicians, who were welcome to stay overnight.

Hey Rich, I'll take all the Pink Martini's, the Melody Gordot and Vivian Girls. Give me your email and I'll paypal it over. On another note, Steely Dan's going to be in B'more in October. Interested? I'm going to contact Gary about this also. Marty

Now that Toyah and Roberts video is truly titillating.

Then there's the Beatles and the songs they covered:

Yup. I've used them several times with great results. Remember, Paul Klipsch used PIO's in "voicing" his various creations.

I'm to lazy to....

Some of the greatest songs ever sung are covers, the singer or band outstripping the original recording. However, like everything in music, it's a double-edged sword. All too often covers suck. The band, or singer, has run out of original material but needs to put out an album, so scrape up some tunes and record them. Often, it something by The Beatles, so from simply awful to execrable. Think Peggy Lee trying to attract a younger crowd. However, this one has to take the cake. The talented Brian Ferry of Roxy Music fame, covering, and I'm not making this up, "Amazing Grace". I'm attaching a link so you can see for yourself , but I advise listening to it with your hands over your ears. So anybody else got a world class stinker of a cover song?

Looks great Joe! I do have a very good LOMC setup with Craig's NBS pre.

Wonderful speakers, I actually like them more than their big brother, the 5.5. Very smooth and coherent, which is not something you always get from Klipsch. Unless your broke, keep them. Even if you park them for a time, eventually you'll haul them out and boy will you feel good the first time you fire them up again.

One to make me larger, one to make me smaller. I always thought that medicine came in liquid form. Although, I was being really funny with one liners one night and this guy called me "a pill".

Probably his parents, nor anyone else, took the time to show him how to fish and how cool it can be.