maxg

System behaving strangely - please ignore

Yes - sorry about that Maron. You passed out having consumed about $1,276.78 of booze, cigars and a few other bits we wont mention. Anyway - we went though your pockets and you had $3.24, 2 chewing gums, one out of date condom and a bit of string. This nice Greek guy (Markos something ) was sailing for the Orient and the chinese ship he was on was a bit short handed - so he settled your bill and took you off. Hope you like Macau - please don't be a stranger when you get back. Oh - and if anyone suggests you step into the barrel on the poop deck - I wouldn't if I were you - one day we'll tell you how it got its name.

Well excellent work Travis - this is very like the Greek lamb - but there is about a kilo of Garlic less. Chris Rhea hit the TT a while back and went down a storm - thought I might put on Marvin Gaye - "What's going on?" next - its a bit more relaxing to eat by. By crikey those old Cornwalls can play too cant they - superb match for the Marantz. OK folks - I'm calling happy hour - delirious in some cases - all drinks half price except the house wine which is now free. We have a selection of cigars at the bar if anyone is keen after eating - oh - and you can smoke them indoors - this is Greece - you can smoke in a maternity ward if you want - many of the babies do....

"I need to get the pit going so the lamp will be ready." I think you mean you need to get a spit going so the lamb will be ready. Better get someone to help you there - looks like you've had one to many to be trusted marinading the electircal stuff.... Good Job Michael brought some speakers - we were without any and nobody noticed - must be why we got so few complaints about the music. Anyone got anything else to contribute - the Rolling Stones album is getting a bit worn...

No - he doesn't get on with the Czech - they are poles apart. ba-ba-boom-pa!

Yup - there's a Pole, 2 Swedes and a Czech in the public bar at the back.

Sadly Marty, Gretchen's not here for me - there is a new guy in her life, a reporter guy from the back streets that came up the hard way and knows his way around all the leazy dime and titty bars. He dont come in much and I dont mess with him - usually just picks her up and splits. If I were you Marty I'd stick with the twins - isn't that Josh over there getting fresh with them? I think I'll have this damn cart from Travis done in a few moments - anyone know the tracking weight - I'll try it around 1.9 for now and we'll see how it stands. At least we have the Stones record to test it with - even I was beginning to tire of Karen's voice. Now can someone get Maron out of his chair and walk him round the bar a couple of times - getting a bit worried about him - that's the 14th straight Vodka in the last 2 hours, oh, and does anyone know if he can actually play that banjo of his? I think we better ban him if he can - what say the regulars.?

Ah - me regulars - welcome one and all. We've instaled a new jetti by the water for the girls to moor up to. Nice Marantz - what pre-amp will be a nice match to this? Anchor steam is a new one on me - so y0u prefer "Hey Mr. Interstaller Policeman" or "La Donne Mobile"?

After a long break I have decided to re-open the Taverna for the inmates. For those new to the forum it was something we did a few years ago. The Ouzo is now on tap - as is the Tsipouro - a selection of Greek wines fill the cellar and there are 4 beers on tap - you can all decide what they are. Sadly the live band has not turned up (after what happened last time with Thebes and the belly dancer who can blame them? I still can't look a potato in the eye after that one!! Anyway - as a change (and blatently stealing an idea from one of Thebes own posts earlier this week) we are re-inventing ourselves as an audiophile taverna. Entrance is free but you must bring either a piece of equipment or a recording with you to gain entrance. Items of equipment can be swapped out with items already installed - if the presenter can guaranttee the sonic result will be better. If the majority decide they are wrong then the originator has to match Fini quip for quip 4 times. Try to stick to items of equipment you either own or have owned. If we go straight to $200,000 stuff it will all end very quickly. In order to minimize wars you cannot suggest the following replacements: A Nosvalves amp with a Juicymusic amp - or vice versa. A Khorn with a Jubilee or vice versa. If needs be we will create a second system upstairs to cater for items that really ought to be incorporated. Also - as this is a bar and we will need some power - lets not go down the SET route. Another war we do not need. If you dont want to contribute equipment - remember we need music desperately. Right now we have 600 classical recordings, 48 operas and the Carpenters. I will kick things off with my own TT: Clearaudio Master Solution, TQI Souther linear tracking arm, Denon 103, outer ring, inner ring, clearaudio centre weight, clearaudio power supply/speed changer, Acoustic signature Tango phono stage and clearaudio harmonicer vinyl matt. So lets start off looking for pre-amps, amps, speakers (I wonder what make we will all go for??), cables etc. etc. Hope this takes off - I will look a complete idiot if it doesn't - not that this will be news of course....

I have been content with my system for over a year or 2 now - and I am still here. No need to leave just cos you got it right. Now I only replace things that break.

Can't be wrapped? You're pregnant - its another grandchild.

Very festive.

Beware of making morality judgements for different eras. Just compare our morality to that of the turn of the last century - or even the 1950's. If we get to the point that the world population is double or triple the current level I would think all bets are off as to what might be considered acceptable or otherwise. Also bear in mind that they will almost certainly look back at our times in horror at our morality just as we do for slave owners, witch burners etc. etc.

Gotta say I am with Jackson on this one. Judging entirely from the report I woud guess this man is enjoying his life rather nicely and is spending his money as he sees fit. I'd also hazard a guess that whatever he has spent on his hobby is probably a small part of his total wealth - so why not?? PS - apologies for the lack of layout in this post - the system is playing up and I can't seem to make paragraphs. As for what ACA members will make of it - we will see - I have posted a link on the forum there.

Good choice Timm, We've had a Tivoli for ages now - not the clock radio sadly - it came out after i bought mine. Their range has grown enormously - when I bought mine there was only one unit in different woods. now they have stereo versions, CD players and even a subwoofer. Prices are not all that appealing though - they seem to be getting awfully close to proper stereos and whilst the sound is good for a radio it aint that good.

This thread has taken an interesting direction. As I see it I would conclude that the best chance of being able to blast off to see the stars would be as digital entities shed enitrely of our bodies. This would mean huge savings in life support requirements and probably reduce the needs for shielding from all the nasty bits of radiation out there that our bodies are just not able to deal with. Further - with a digital existance the engines themselves could be a lot less "clean" without undue problems. This is probably a good time to start getting into MOG's - I have never played with them - but hell - these could turn out to be our future.....

I wonder how he decides which system to listen to? I think it would drive me insane and I would be running from one room to another just to hear what I was missing...ultimately - of course - ending up hearing nothing.

One wonders - considering the onward march of technology - if there might not be another way of stepping off the planet. Something akin to the Matrix springs to mind- we are probably far closer to this as a possible future than we are to colonizing space. It will be much cheaper too. Of course - if as Mark states the technological mind will surpass the biological within a mere 30 years then the ability to download a human being into a system is but a hop skip and a jump away. On the other hand I know some that express doubts about this - and not people not in the know. One of my friends is a professor at the Athens university with a similar concurrent position in a US university (Wisconsin I think). He is quite the rage at the moment having won just last year the professor of the year award for Greece. Anyway - according to him we are still a long way from being able to reproduce any thing much more sophisticated than a cockroach. He sees further development obviously - but how far we can go is something of an unknown. Let us assume for the time being that we could find a way to leave out biological suits behind and live as mere projections in a virtual universe. Kinda solves the food and water issue - not to mention the space. Baring mishap to a none backed up hard drive you get your immortality too. Viruses would still be a worry of course- but of a different kind. So - no need to leave the planet after all - at least for the time being - bury the computers in the deepest bunkers we can make - at distant points around the earth and let the telecoms networks keep us all in touch.

"That which reproduces eventually occupy all available space and consume all available resources. " This was the assumption. One wonders whether the natural world - or even our arguably unnatural one would allow for such expansion. So many factors come into play - from disease to falling fertility to concequential wars due to overpopulation to increases in non-breeding stocks (for example an increasing proportion of homosexuals within the population might be direct natural control to over-population - I have no evidence for this one whatsoever - just musing as I type). To re-iterate - the reason I would call this assumptive is that you are talking about approaching limits behaviour and this is something we are yet to have truely experienced. There may indeed be some leming in us afterall.... As for social changes that might undermine such growth I would not think it safe to assume anything can be off the radar of acceptability when it comes to social policy. I have seen so many changes in my life-time - a mere 40 odd years - and even more so in the last 10 that anything and everything could become acceptable with a decade. China's model may not have been a model of success - but it has stemmed the growing population problem. Is it such a stretch to imagine that a given family in the far flung future would have to prove that a relative has died in orde to gain a "breeding licence". This might being us out in hives today - but in a world of, say 14 billion people it might be a wholy acceptable proposition. OK - yes - we might be able to get far enough away to avoid even a gamma burst. Bit of a stretch if you ask me - we can barely get to the end of our own solar system (and then very much unmanned). The nearest star is 4.5 light years away - or with today's technology about 30 years or more probably. The galaxy is 100 million light years across - give or take a hundred million - with today's technology - call it a cool billion years to cross it. The next nearest galaxy is rather further away than our own galaxy is is across - in simply terms - unless something SERIOUSLY remarkable happens - fuggedaboutit. And here is the problem with the arguement. Right now interstellar travel (not intergalactic - a whole new realm) is entirely science fantasy - not science fiction. We aint even close. We aint even on the starting line - we are further away from this than we are from stone-age man. How do I put this? Lets talk again in a thousand years. Even then - when we have the technology to make the journey - do we have the biology? We are not built for space. Ever see the pictures of that russian cosmonaut that came back after about 18 months in space - poor sod couldnt walk - could hardly breath - needed lots of help and time to recover and his bone calcium had dropped to levels normally the reserve of people suffering from brittle bones syndrome. Ultimately - one has to ask the question - which is the easier task - to sort out issues here on earth or to mount an effort to cross the bounds of space? I am not sure which would be the easier - but each time we start to talk about how far we have come I am reminded of this: There is a scientific theory that if you bored a hole through the earth - right through the centre you could achieve continuous motion by dropping an item into it. Here is the thing - we are nearer to the stars than we are to be able to do this feat - in fact even tunneling the 30 odd miles through the earth's crust is totally beyond us. Deepest mine on record is around 2 miles deep. Dave - I'd adore it if we could do any of this stuff. We just - cant right now and we are talking such a huge quantum leap to get there it seems a bit like hanging on to win the lotto. If you play every week you will win one day - but when that day is ....

I dont think I have fully understood the problem we are trying to solve here. On the one hand there is humanity. Yes - it is possible, if not likely, that any one of a number of events could either wipe us out completely or reduce our numbers significantly. On the other hand there is earth as a life bearing planet. I think it unlikely that any event in the 100 million years or so would wipe out all of life on earth. A given event might reduce biodiversity enormously (large meteor striking the earth for example) and erase us from the surface but, as others have pointed out the earth itself will likely survive and life appears tenacious enough to do likewise. Now we know that at some point the earth wil be totally destroyed. When the sun goes nova that's it folks - game over. The good news is that this is about 5 billion years hence - so no need to panic just yet. On the other hand - a gamma ray burst in our vacinity would wipe out all life equally effectively. That could happen tomorrow - or in 10 billion years - we dont know. The bad news is that even space travel will not help much with this. We could not get far enough away in any reasonable time to survive it - and gamma ray burst travel at the speed of light - so there is no warning either. Now I should state for the record that I think space exploration is a must but I do not really see it as opening a bolt hole for humanity to survive. You would get more milage for that out of building a space defence system to deflect or destroy incoming comets and meteors IMHO. The further problem is that manned space exploration is pretty ineffecient so it is likely that our most exciting exploits would be unmanned and therefore of little use as a life boat. The moon and mars don't look very edifying for colonization - right now. A more promising candidate might be Europa (how did Arthur C Clarke know this??) with the addiitonal benefit that Jupiter is near enough to deflect most incoming projectiles. Europa is, however, a long way away compared to our current technological capabilities and we would need to send a whole lot of equipment there to support even the most modest community. Of course it goes without saying that once there - should the earth meet an untimely end - they would be pretty much stuck for thousands of years (should they survive that long). Bad luck and even that community would end. Assuming we beat the odds and get passed all of the above there is the issue of the end of the universe itself. It is called the big rip - and it won't be nice. That is something like 50 billion years off - so again no immediate worry - but there is no getting away from it - we are all doomed!!![+o(]

Just so you don't all feel left out - send yourselves an email....

Part of me is just tempted to say - Go for it!! - whatever lights your candle. However - just a few points: How loud a system will play is a function of the power of the amplifier and the sensitivity of the speakers. Lower sensitivity speakers require more power to play at a given volume. Obviously there are limits to how much power you can really pump into a speaker (before you melt the coils). Watts are watts - they are measured in the same way for tube amps and solid state amps. Some tube "amps" are even lower than the ones you have seen - 3.5 watts - even 1.5 watts. With very sensitive speakers this probably doesnt matter much - but it will ultimately limit the volume you can listen to - before coil melting does. Power has to double for an increase of just 3 dB under normal conditions. In your case, therefore, bridging 2 amps would yield a 3 dB increase in maximum volume (if your speakers can take it). I cannot recall the sensitivity rating for the Cornwall off-hand - but it is somewhere around 100 dB/w/m. That means that at a distance of 1 meter with 1 watt pumping into the speakers you will get 100 dB of sound. 2 watts - 103 dB 4 - 106 8 - 109 16 - 112 32 - 115 Etc. etc. As you can see from the above even with 32 watts you are getting pretty loud (permanent ear damage in about 30 minutes of constant exposure). Now assuming your listening position is not 1 meter from the speakers there will be some loses from these numbers (although there are also gains to be had from the fact that you are presumably listening to 2 or more speakers). All in all then - unless you have a truely cavernous room and listen from well back you shouldn't ever need the 250 watts you already have.

Very cool review. Is the Greek distributor getting them too? Would love to have a play with them to see how good they really are. I have several sets of headphones and in the ear types but only the Stax are good and those get very hot in summer. I wonder how I would connect these to my main system?