jheis

For more Ray Brown (along with John Clayton & Christian McBride) check out "Super Bass" & "Super Bass 2" on Telarc Jazz Their version of "Papa was a Rolling Stone" is killer! Also check out "The Ray Brown Trio (with Gene Harris & Jeff Hamilton) Live at the Loa - Summer Wind." (Concord Jazz, CD & SACD on one disc) I'd also recommend Brian Bromberg's "Wood." Bromberg plays a 300 year old Matteo Guersam bass. Check out his version of Lennon/McCartney's "Come Together." James

Right. Different is not the same as "better." James

A "work-around" is to use a speaker selector switch (such as a Niles) to "turn off" your speakers before turning off the amp. James

To expand a little on what wuzzer said; The analog outputs use the CD player's D/A convertor. The digital outputs (either coax or optical) use the D/A convertor in your pre/pro instead. James

About 2 or 3 years ago I dropped ~$1,800.00 on a "top-of-the-line" IBM Thinkpad T42 assuming that IBM was made in the USA & I was buying an American made product. When it was delivered I was shocked to discover that my brand new IBM was made in CHINA! Of course, shortly thereafter IBM announced that it was selling its entire PC operation to Lenovo - which, apparently had been building all its PC's for a number of years. Then my hard drive failed - & I soon learned that IBM did not have a SINGLE hard drive available in the entire USA. My replacement hard drive (Hitachi - made in Thailand) had to be shipped from Hong Kong! I sure hope we never have to go to war with China because our production base is long gone. You want fries with that? James

I'll add a recommendation for B&K to the mix. I was introduced to B&K by the (now) classic ST-140 (105 wpc). At the time I also had a monster Carver TFM-45 (375 wpc) in my main system driving Cornwalls. I ended up listening to (and liking) the B&K more than the TFM-45, so I eventually got rid of the Carver (Sunfire is Bob Carver's new line). I now have a B&K Ref 50 pre/pro and four B&K ST-125.2 amps running my main system and a pair of PT3sII pre-amps and ST-1400sII & ST-2140 amps running the office & bedroom systems. Needless to say, I REALLY like B&K - and it's made in the US. James

I use crimp-on spades with 12 gauge on all my Heritage speakers. Works just fine - particularly with the small barrier strips Klisch uses - and there's much less chance of having a stray strand of wire shorting out than there is with bare wire. James

Yeah, I thought it was supposed to be on "All Things Considered," so I listened this afternoon. No mention of Art Pepper.... James

I like your priorities. Music 1st. You can always get furniture later.... James

Formatting works fine for me (fills the whole screen) with Linux running Firefox on a 15" laptop (1024x768), but navigation is very - no, make that excruciatingly - Slooooow. I also miss being able to see who started the thread.... No, on second thought, it is crucial to know who started the thread (so I have some idea whether it's worth reading or not - plus it's very difficult to keep track of threads simply by the heading title). James

Mac OS X is a further development of NeXTStep/OPENSTEP which Apple acquired in 1996 when they paid $400m for NeXT and Steve Jobs returned to Apple as "interim" CEO. I'm running OPENSTEP 4.2 on a NeXT Turbo Cube & have just picked up two NeXT Turbo Color Stations which should be delivered Tuesday. Oh boy, new (old) toys! [] James

It's been succeeding for me for about 8 - 10 years now. Of course, I still do most of my real work on my old Unix based NeXT. The old NeXT version of WordPerfect does everything I need it to do - without mimicing the overly complex & completely unintuitive M$ Word style (which I hate). Lotus Improv for spreadsheets & keeping track of accounts & Pencil Me In for calendaring - what more do I need? Oh yeah, internet access - that's where Linux takes over. I ran Sun's JDS2 Linux for a couple of years. But after numerous broken promises & repeated delays, Sun pulled the plug on their Linux faithful and only released the long overdue "3" update of JDS on Solaris - even though Sun insiders said the Linux version was ready and waiting. Sun demonstrated their lack of commitment to Linux. I doubt that Looking Glass will ever be released on Linux. James

Do you guys realize that you are responding to a six year old thread? Who keeps dredging these things up? James

Boy, talk about WAF! Good thing there's a fire extinguisher close by! James

Thanks for your kind offer. Too bad you're so far away.... James

As you can tell from my sig line, I'm a big fan of B&K products. One of my amps, the ST2140 (140 wpc), however, is giving me some trouble. If I power it up manually (with the on/off switch) it works normally. However, if I use the 12V control signal from the preamp to turn it on I get a very loud BZZZZZT through the right channel. It only lasts for a couple of seconds and then the amp seems to work fine. I've tried swapping out the preamp & doing a preamp reset & the noise is definitely coming from/staying with the amp. I know simple solution is to just turn the amp on manually, but this is the bedroom system & it would be really nice to be able to turn the system on with the remote & not have to get up to turn on the amp. I also have a ST1400 II which seems to be internally identical (part numbers on the circuit boards are all the same) & I've tried swapping out the control voltage circuit boards & the on/off switches with no effect. Any suggestions? I've emailed B&K, but no response yet. James

Yuck! Beaucoup bucks - zero taste. Tacky, tacky, tacky. James

I did a similar ledge crawl with my Brother a few years ago in the Downieville area of the Tahoe National Forest in northern California. Narrow cliff trail (~2' wide) with a straight drop ~200 feet down to a boulder strewn stream bed. My Brother claims he rode it. I was too far back, hugging the cliff side with my body while creeping along with the bike on the outside, to see whether he did or not. I, sure as hell, did NOT ride it. Probably one of the scariest things I've ever done. It was a ride (hike dragging my bike) that I survived rather than enjoyed. When we got back to the hotel that night I was totally knackered. James

Hamilton is 22 (not 19), but yeah, if he pulls it out he'll be the first to win the World Championship in his rookie year (if someone who has been on McLaren's payroll since he was 10 years old can be considered a rookie). James

My advice? Bad idea - forget about it. I taped a whole semester of con. law. The problem is logistics. It takes an hour to listen to an hour lecture - it'll never happen. She should take, beg, borrow, or steal notes. She'll never have time to listen to the tapes - especially when she's trying to cram for exams. BTDT. James

STL The short answer is no. I went through this a while back. While the purpose of ferrofluid is still not entirely clear to me, it is injected into the circular slot in the speaker magnet that the voice coil rides in/is suspended into. As Colter said, the ferrofluid supposedly helps to dispense heat, but some speakers use it - others do not - it doesn't seem to make much, if any, difference either way. The "ferro" component tends to hold it in suspension in the magnet, but since it is kind of an oily liquid and the speaker is vertically oriented, it wants to seep out. It has nothing to do with the diaphragm being good or bad - although if the fasteners holding the diaphragm in place are not tight it would tend to promote leakage because of the poor seal. Diaphragm failure is usually due to a mechanical failure of the voice coil - such as a burnt or broken wire. The voice coil wires are only about as thick as a strand of human hair. James

After listening to folks raving about the wonderfulness of vinyl vs. CDs, I dug my TT out of the audio closet and drug my LPs in from the garage. Set everything up and listened to lots of music I hadn't heard in years. Most of my LPs are in pristine condition, having been played once, taped & put back on the shelf. After about a week, however, the TT went back in the closet and the LPs are back out in the garage. I liked Pat's "tea ceremony" analogy. For me, cleaning the record, getting up every 15 minutes (it's amazing how little music there is on some LPs!) to turn the record over and then cleaning the OTHER side, the surface noise, clicks & pops, etc., was just too much of a PITA to be worth the hassle. And, of course, there is the fact that my musical tastes have changed a bit in the 20 years since I've purchased a LP. And with a local FM station that plays commercial free REAL jazz 24/7, I, frankly, don't spend that much time listening to CDs either. YMMV. James

Jim: Some very nice options there. I haven't heard them all so can't comment on the others, but, in my experience you can't go too far wrong with B&K (and it's made in the USA). James

Yup.