Marvel

You could take a horn you like and model it in wood. Easier said than done, but if you have the tools available, why not give it a try. Marvel

Easyeyes, So clarification may be in order. Most consumer R-R are quarter track stereo, on quarter inch tape. You record two stracks (stereo) in one direction, get to the end and flip the tape and do the same the other way. The tracks are split, so you record (and play back) on tracks 1-3. Tracks 2-4 are lined up to record or play back when the tape is flipped (becoming 1-3 in essence). The early two track machines used half inch tape in one direction. The tape and electronics dictated that for the quality desired. Then they cam up with a three track on half inch. I have a CD remastered from a three track tape. Then they made a four track on half inch tape, where you could record all four tracks at once (mix down later). Eventually, Les Paul worked with folks to make a one inch eight track (not to be confused with auto 8 track cartridges). Then he could overdub more guitar parts with himself (was going to say play with himself, but that doesn't sound quite right). As tape and electronics got better, they moved to 2 inch tape and 16 or 24 tracks, utilizing Dolby NR and dbx NR. Then the prosumer stuff came out with half inch and 16 tracks. The tape costs are considerable, as well as how heavy duty the transport had to be. The older big decks had 1 1/2 inch cast and machined aluminum chassis for the hub motors and head blocks to mount on. No wonder they cost in the thousands of dollars ( not $3-4, but $30-40k and more). If you ever saw the tension get messed up on a big R-R when in fast forward, with the reel weighing in at about ten pounds or so it isn't a pretty sight. Marvel

TAD (Pioneer) has a couple of wooden horns, around $2300 each. Lots of folks have made their own. Marvel

A frequent poster, djk, has a mod for the LS bins, that does use the K43 (among other things). He took a full size LS cabinet, opened the top of the woofer section into the up squawker area. Then sealed the back. He made the internal volume for the woofer larger and got better bass. I made drawings to add a box on the bottom of an LS, accomplishing the same thing. I just haven't built it yet. There were some other things he did as well. Marvel

At this time, the best place for Heresys is in my living room. Alas, they don't reside there. Marvel

You could get an Ampex as well. Some of the two tracks were actually made by Tascam, the professional side of Teac. My 3340s is a tank, but needs a pinch roller and a few other things. I have moved some tapes to the pc at 24 bit, and made some mixes. They sound very good. You could throw Fostex into the mix as well. Some of their machines are solid. Not nearly as solid as the Otari, Ampex, Studer lines though. Or the older Scully machines. Did an albom on Scully four tracks once. Marvel

The 'accomodating' for reel to reel decks shouldn't mean more than another set of line inputs. They aren't magic. Just finished reading an article by a mastering lab, and the owner prefers to get masters from studios on 1/2 inch tape. He can deal with any format, including 16/44.1 and up. I still have my TEAC four track reel to reel. They still have their places. Although you hear so much about ProFools, er, Tools, there are still a lots of studios using two inch tape decks. Maintenance is pretty high, and tape costs are high (reel of 2 inch tape is about $135). For the consumer, tape is about $24 for a 10.5 inch reel. Usually a special order item now. For best results, your deck needs to be biased for the tape stock used. Tape bias mixes in a high frequency signal with the lower audio freq., to allow those signals to be put on tape. Marvel

I suppose everyone has seen the pair of Belles in Black on Ebay. They are up to just over $900. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3018470170&category=14993 Marvel

Craig, Have you seen the Eico HF-87 on Ebay as well. It looks very clean as well, although I would certainly start replacing the power supply caps (as well as everything else). It is at $281 so far, with 4 days to go. Marvel

Justin, For acoustic music, just about any of the "Dawg" music albums would sound great. David Grisman has been pumping these out for close to 30 years now. I have an early one with David Grisman and Stefan Grapelli (I'm sure I spelled that wrong). The newer ones are just as good. Tony Rice on guitar. Way cool music. Also, the music of Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor should sound awesome with that combo you have at the moment. I've also got a release of Rosemary Clooney and Duke Ellington whish is nice. Marvel

Until you said Macintosh it was easy. Spend $8 and buy a new one. It probably has little platic tabs that you have to flex to get it open. Depending on the design, taking the top off will result in all the keys falling off. Hate it when that happens. If it uses rubber dome technology, there are individual silcone rubber cups (inverted)under each key or a single silicone rubber mat with the domes all molded in. The latter is the easy kind as you can just wash the top side off with no problem. Then clean the keys so they will move freely and reassemble. Marvel

Tom, We just downloaded the Redhat 9 ISOs at work. Now they recommend at least 400-450Mhz cpu for it. I'm working on my BeOS box for music playback, since it screams on a 266. Marvel

I found some site where a guy has two bass horns that are the base for his bed, with Oris horns for the mids/highs. Michael Christs horn collection is pretty neat too, with beautiful veneer work. Marvel

....horns! http://www.avantgarde-usa.com/basshorns.html I think the basshorn module in the middle is about $20k. I mean it is a two channel setup. Marvel

Make sure you download the newer drivers for the card from the M-Audio site. They fixed some bass management problems over the CD that came with the card. Justin, I was looking at the Anandtech forum talking about this card, and some were having touble with the latency when recording. They may actually have to up the buffer size instead of lowering it. It doesn't make sens, but the same was true for the Audiophile 2496. My latency on my Audiophile is very low. Didn't know if you had tied the line inputs, to see if they were off the wall or not. I don't know what the control panel is like for the Revolution so I can't help directly. Marvel

According to an old book on recording, "Modern Recording Techniques" by Robert Runstein, studios use a playback volume of close to 85 db. Due to the Fletcher-Munson curves, this allows music to be played a little louder and a little quieter without much apparent change in the eq of the recording. I think Invidiosulus said they taught 90 db at Full Sail in Orlando. Then again, recording engineers are listening to music playback at those volumes all the time. Over time the high volume will damage your hearing. Marvel

Bruinsrme, I had an acquaintance who worked for Bell South in Miami, doing line work. He climbed up a pole one day, the pole being enveloped in some kind of climbing vine. He reached up with some tool to open a box above him and a couple hundred palmetto bugs who were nesting in the box fell out on top of him. He said he couldn't get to the ground fast enough. They were in his shirt and pants, hair. He was smashing them all the way down. Needless to say, he took the rest of the day off. First to go home and shower and change clothes. He has since change careers. Marvel

TPG, Thanks. I've got good dual supplies laying around. I could use the balanced in to unbalanced out, but can figure it out. I've got a couple other schematics somewhere, and WOULD like it to be pretty good. I do multitrack audio work, blah, blah blah... As many other projects as I have going on right now, it may never get built. What schematic program did you use? I have been using the free version of Cadsoft's Eagle layout and editor. I used to work with a guv'mint contractor, and we had the pricey stuff, but my wallet is much thinner and my needs a bit less. Marvel

Moon, Thanks. Even though I am behind the guitar, the Taylor is a lot nicer to look at. Trespasser_Guy, You must have a schematic for the line drivers, etc. Could you post a copy? The only thing I've not liked about my M-Audio AP 2496 is the unbalanced i/o on it. My mixer has balanced I/o and would make it easier for me to located my pc in another room (and get rid of the fan noise). Marvel

It wasn't really a blunderbus, it was my new compression driver and horn. Honest! Marvel

The spec for spdif really is for short distances, it just keeps the signal digital. Optical would work better but most of the toslink cables are plastic fiber, and won't go the distance either. If you can get someone to terminate the connectors onto glass fiber, it can work for pretty long distances (and no interference). M-audio makes an spdif to optical convertor (bi directional) that sells for about $60. Marvel

You might not be able to get lead shot, just bismuth or steel. Marvel

A lot of Alesis gear is made in China. A lot of Logitech gear is made in China. They could both be buying the same product with thier own names on them. Alesis blub on this hardware: http://www.alesis.com/news/press/proactive.html Alesis does own Numark (or the other way around), the dj equipment maker. Marvel

I may be ugly but I ain't stupid! No offense taken. If that were the case, I guess it should have been Marveline. I dug out this old photo I had (from around 1972), and replaced my pic on our id page at work. Most people never look at it, but it got a few comments. Maybe I better change this one out now. Don't know why I ever liked having my hair long either. It is too much work. There used to be a country artist named Faron Young. While working in tv news in Memphis a few years back, we did an interview with him. He had started wearing his hair long and had an earring, until during a show some guy started winking at him a whole lot. He changed his mind. Marvel

Colin, I spent over an hour at home listing all my reasons for being patriotic, but still opposed to this present excursion into Iraq. All without insults or name calling. But I let it rest, intending to go back and edit and tweak more before posting. And as if you were reading my mind, you have explained quite well the whole reason for clear discourse. My wife and I have spent hours trying to gather information from news sources all over the world. The information is vastly different than what we get in the U.S. alone. Each media outlet has its own intentions, so the truth probably lies somewhere in between. See, wasn't that easy? Thanks, Marvel ps Can I put on some Dixie Chicks now? pps Just because my avatar shows me with long hair, it was over 25 years ago. I can only dream of that much hair now.