pauln

REVELATION: I am subject to having misconceptions MISCONCEPTION: My system would be just right for anyone else. People with systems better than mine are obsessive and foolishly chasing that which can't be heard. People with systems inferior to mine are clueless and don't hear music as I do.

Ah..., fish don't have ears, they have a strip down each side of the body called the lateral line, through which they detect the motions of other fish by vibrations in the water... so underwater music might "sound" to them like some very strange creature(s)? Or maybe a lone fish that feel comfortable in a school would enjoy being surrounded by invisible friends?

One of the features of the tether is that you can raise or lower your orbit ( and thereby slow down or speed up) by discharging the potential that is built up, depending on which end is discharged. This would allow the whole thing to "swing low" and the lower end of the tether to intercept things.

fini, I think the Shuttle continues to use its own rockets after the big tank is released, low Earth orbit is anything up to about 3000 miles or so, but in this case the target orbit is about the same as the Shuttle up about 200 miles. Clue #1: "The Space Tether Experiment"

The bias is what uses the audio signal to control the passage of current in your channel outputs. If the bias is off its set point you may very well have too much current in the output. If the bias current is missing there is nothing controlling the output current and it would get hot fast... You should not operate the unit until you or someone else can check it out. Should check the bias for both channels and also check the DC offset for both. There may be some other parts that have failed or are no longer holding their specifications. On units like that there are usually some test points on the boards that look like little pins sticking up labeled "T1, T2...". The are connected to a volt ohm meter for reading. The actual bias adjustment usually looks like a little button with a slot in it to take a screwdriver blade (one for each channel). Like wise the DC off set is adjusted using a similiar little slotted button pair (the DC offset is the amount of DC going to your speakes when there is no signal - it should be adjusted so it is zero). The manual you have is the UserManual, the one you need is the Service Manual; it will have all the procedures for adjusting and tuning everything with step by step and diagrams. You can get a Service Manual at www.agtannenbaum.com or a number of other web sites. Some of the procedures will need to be done in order. If the procedures look too difficult or dangerous to you, have it done by someone experienced or a shop. You should also look around the web, there are Sansui forums that discuss these things and know all about how to keep them alive.

No guesses yet for how to catch the big tank into low orbit? Was hoping to see some ideas before providing the first clue...

Nice, I've got the same ones - 2005 right before the change. That Rega gear looks very high end, I think Rega has a reputation for attention to thoughful design. No surprize that it would sound excellent. I'm driving mine with the opposite approach; 1930's style 2A3 SET monoblocks, tube preamp and phono EQ with external tube power supply (all made by George Wright), and a 32 year old Bang & Olufsen record player. But likewise, I love the clear high end without any overly bright smear. As for the mid range, you already know how the La Scalas do that so well. For the low end, since I'm exclusively playing records, and I had Heresys for 25 years before the LS, the low end sounds plenty good to me without a sub.

There is plenty of information all about this stuff in this forum and elsewhere around the web, but it is hard to understand without a little experience using a turntable. Once you have one, more things make sense, but the learning curve and the frustrations of getting it right at the beginning can be a pain. Like many other things, sometimes it helps to get a "safe mode" version first until you gain some experience and discover your preferences. You might try a two step process. Step 1] "Safe Mode", "Learner's Permit", "Training Wheels" kind of Starter Kit: Get something that is inexpensive, fool proof, needs no adjustments, and will not hurt your records while building your collection. Since a lot of the "lost knowledge" about turntables has to do with the mounting of the cartridge (about 6 simultaneous different orientations of geometrical aligment and vertical/lateral force adjustments), you might want to start with an old Bang & Olufsen table (these are fully auto) where all the aligments are built into the cartridge and arm already, nothing to set up except the tracking force, which is low and will save your records. These can be found used in the $50-100 range, and would be good enough to get started without the frustrations of getting them set up nor fear of damaging your records. Then start learning about the mechanics and geometry of how tables, arms, and cartridges inter-relate. Step 2] Upgrade Wisely after Learning: Later, after learning all about how regular tables, arms, and cartridges need to be set up, you may make a much better informed decision, especially if you are looking for a high performance/value used system.

Putting the dishonesty aside, assume for a moment that their story is true...What they are revealing to you is that their cost to provide and distribute the stuff to you is zero! So what price should they ask for something that they clearly reveal cost them nothing (except the cost of their souls)? Why does this sound like it belongs in the FED/Treasury discussion thread?

What about the big central tank of liquid fuel? That one gets let go at about 90 miles up and falls into the Indian Ocean. They don't recover that one, do they? In theory, there is a way to recover it while it is still up around 90 miles high, and put it into low Earth orbit. When it is released it still has quite a bit of liquid fuel in it, and having the tank structure in orbit has many excellent applications (nice bonus with some fuel in it) . Anyone care to guess the theoretical process for catching it at altitude and getting it into orbit?

I had Heresys for 25 years, great speakers, used with SETs they are very good. Compared to the rest of the Heritage, the Heresys have an additional 3dB in the high end, which I have always thought was to compensate for their lower elevation of the mid horn and tweeter when placed on the floor - where they should be for most low end response. In the corners on the floor, tilting them back may project the high end more directly into the room at listening elevation. Setting them up from the floor does change their character a bit making more of the mids and highs, and this can sound good, but to preseve the bass the stands need to be in the corners as much as possible. Ultimately it depends on the room. In an ideal room they can be on the floor and pushed all the way back into the corners with a couple of inches of tilt back and they will sound great with remarkable bass. Problem rooms with boomy bass may be addressed by pulling the speakers a little into the room, really just have to experiment. Since they are light, it really helps to have another person make the adjustments on position and placement while you listen.

Dave, So sorry I missed out on this one, knew I would be late planning free by mid afternoon, but we had another band open for us and my band finished performing up in Houston around 6:00 PM, got home over an hour later pretty exhausted, and intended to just take a quick nap for a few minutes before heading over. I woke up at 4:00 AM in my clothes with the lights still on. Keep me on the list, Paul

I can think of a million other things I'd rather do than listen to ultra high fidelity airplane engines, shouting, door slamming, and bombs; especially at +30dB over the realistic level. I'm guessing that with so many speakers and who knows what kind of gear the noise floor in the room is probably high, the super loudness may be to cover that. Now if that reporter dude had shown up with a stack of his favorite jazz LPs under one arm, that would have been funny to see!

Something to keep in mind - a lot of folks are liking these old amps and receivers because they intend to use them for playing records, and these old ones have the phono eq... very often excellent phono eq when that was the mode. A lot of the sellers, both individuals and shops, will claim that the unit was serviced, tuned, aligned, etc, and tested, and it sounds great... A lot of those folks don't have a turntable and the testing was done with a little CD player, not using a turntable. I bought an old receiver to play with and the claim was that it tested loud and clear, sounded great. I put on a record and there was no right channel in the phono eq, so I know they did not test it for record playing... just something to remember to test to be sure.

Piano is the most difficult to get right. Even when it is very right it can still not be right... A few years back I got a CD of Bach's Italienisches Konzert BWV 971 to listen at work on the computer... for the longest time I was slightly horrified at the possibility that this recording might have been performed on an electric piano - it sounded way too clean and perfect. When I finally took it home to hear it on the big system I convinced myself that it was a real piano, still just a bit too well tuned and perfect sounding for my tatstes... but then I began to notice a strange intermittant clicking sound in the music that was slightly but not completely in time with some of the notes. After a while I determined what this was: fingernails! The artist was female and her fingernails were tapping some of the keys as she played! This recording to me is an example of pristine perfect engineering gone too far, I can never again enjoy it because of the perfect capture of those damn fingernail sounds... As for the two files - keeping in mind that I am just listening on the Barbie doll house size computer speakers and have been led astray before, I like the second one, it sounds like a performance in a concert hall, the first one has more of a fifty yard line at midnight kind of ambience...

La Scalas are also great for alternative/classical, alternative/jazz, alternative/blues and alternative/folk. Probably great for alternative/country, alternative/rap, and alternative/punk but I'm not a fan of those. But seriously, the La Scalas are really great aren't they? What are you using to make them go?

I also used Wright 2A3 amps with my Heresys and was never more delighted... until I got the La Scalas. Heresys are very good SET speakers and will even show some low end if you put them in the corners, on the floor, toed in 45 degrees and tipped back a few inches.

Dave, I'll be a little late, I'm performing a concert at Bohemio's up in Houston at 2:00, will make my way over after that.

The variey of interests in radio is so great you will need more information. He is surely a member of a radio club - contact them and see if they can help pin down his interests from what they know. Morse code may be keyed manually in different ways, all very much based on personal preference, may also be keyed automatically as straight keyed Morse or as frequency shifted, many other methods. What I'm suggesting is that only he can say what kind of key or system he likes best. Ask his buddies at the radio club: How does he log his QSO's (operating contacts) - written or computiezed? Does he like to operate exclusively from his home station or does he take equipment on location? Does he like to do contesting? Which ones? Is he active in Nets (pubic service / traffic nets - message handling)? Is he active in ARES (Am. Radio Emerg. Service) or RACES (Am. Radio Civil Emerg. Service)? Is he active in MARS (Military Affiliate Radio Service)? Maybe these questions will remind his buddies of something they know he would like that specifically points to a nice gift idea. Hope this helps, Pauln AD5FT

"I've heard it argued that all sound is converted to a massive collection of all-or-none, 0 or 1, therefore "digital" impulses by virtue of the activating of the neurons by the cilia in the inner ear, i.e., our hearing mechanism is an analog to digital converter ....... of course, who knows what happens when these impulses are apprehended by the Ghost in the Machine ..... half serious." This is quite misleading. Although individual neurons depolarize and envoke an "on" or "1" pulse of action potential, the target for these is the body of another neuron where the signals of many are summated spatially and temporally to determine if that target neuron will pass the signal. Further, some signals to the target neuron body are inhibitory rather than excitatory and that is also part of the spatial and temporal summation function. Further, functional "signals" within the brain are never of a single thread of nueral axon, they are always bundles of them so that their actual information content is an averaged value - the on/off or 1/0 aspect is gone, what is left and utilized is an overall level called "neural current" which is quite analog in function. Furthermore, the way the cilia outputs are integrated is much more complicated. The fasted rate of firing and recovery to fire again of a neuron is a little less than 1000 times per second. The perception of frequencies are not directly based on the cilia response rate but more on their location within the cochlea, and there is much more too all of this... There are no functionally digital aspects of the working of the brain...no more than one might argue that continuous matter is really digital because at a low enough level there is either space or something there.

Thanks, Johny - that illustration makes it all the more clear how big a difference that most people still don't realize.

I'm sure he did, including the Wheatstone bridge using just the items in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Spock was MacGyver before MacGyver was cool...

Sort of makes sense to me... Part of the nature of vinyl listening is the natural restriction to a permanent set up vs a mobile music maker. And there is the ritual of warming the tubes, cleaning the record, turning off the AC, unplugging the refrigerator, and otherwise getting the noise floor down as low as possible (late night listening is best) - and the whole event is very deliberate and crafted - then sitting quietly and enjoying the music, focusing in it, really listening actively. The MP3 and other mobile music systems are used much more casually to basically serve as the background music to one's movie of life kind of thing - music while walking in traffic, driving in traffic, working in an office, shopping, cruising, exercising, vacuuming the carpet, or typeing click-clack on the computer; all these environments have a high noise floor to overcome, so the "sizzle" probably helps cut through the background. In this idea, the music is pushing itself at you (passive and self absorbed) rather than you drawing the music to yourself (active and attentive appreciation). Funny how some will say they don't like the surface noise of vinyl when in fact none of that noise nor much of the low level signal would even be heard in the common environments where they listen to MP3s. In spite of the awefull degredation of sound quality enjoyed by young moderns, the quality of the music is even worse. Much of it has been forged directly out of the modern music machine business, stamped and pressed using the handfull of cliches and hooks that catch kids' attention; and has no soul, no variation, no creativity, no insight, no talented execution, no musical spirit... but I digress, don't get me started.

No... what's the BBX?

You remember, Spock and Kirk are sent back to the thirties and with time on their hands, Kirk finds a woman, Spock builds a SET...