Clipped and Shorn

For drilling I like this: http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/detail.ex?sku=63086 C&S

I am now going to shave my head because I am thinking that a dome top helps experiencing detail down at 7 hz. -Crash Dinned Plop

Did you notice what they said about the flexible copper pipe: "Natural silk butter material is covered with Teflon coated flexible copper pipe which has a 100% shielding with very soft and easy handling." How do they get Teflon to stick on natural silk butter material? I am thinking this is some amazing Japanese audio high technology. -Lend Spinach Drop

Have you already used Odd Ranch Nipples? I don't mean as your forum signature, I mean at El Ranch Zeno. Thanks for that link. I think I may have found a new tag-line, i.e.: Superb feel and spacious feel to the sound by natural silk buffer material You know how sensitive I am to the feel of tag-lines... Well, even with my rooster costume the hens won't let me get near them with a pipe wrench while they are molting.

The teflon coated copper flex tubing also comes in 1/2" and 3/4" and the gate valves can be adapted. I thought the controversy had been resolved, use the 3/4" for SET amplification. -Ranch Odds Nipple

The brass gate valves work nicely if you run either 1/2" or 3/4" copper pipe for the speaker connections. Another option would be copper tubing. The pipes or tubing allows for rolling different liquids inside for subtly effecting the sound. If you want you can use standard pipe insulation as well. Actually I am being serious, I think it would look cool introducing a plumbing vibe to the living room decor. -Clash Dropped Inn

is how I deal with my warped LPs. Works every time and very fun too especially at the end of the process. -Ranch Spindled Op

Indeed. Please pmail me the name of your supplier...must be really good stuff. Standard Boilerplate: That's a joke, no offense, etc, etc. Dave Oh, Dave, no offense taken. I just woke up from that trip....... thanks for the thumbs up. What were we talking about...? I believe it was two or more examples of the undistributed middle not supported by available research. Coulda been cookies... Yeah, it was cookies. Dave As time passes, my stereo sounds better to me. Burn-in takes time passing. Therefore Burn-in makes my stereo sound better to me. hmmmmm... it depends what you put in those cookies, good idea to make one batch "with" and one batch "without" just in case you cannot keep yourself from eating a lot of cookies. --Odd Planner Chips

Indeed. Please pmail me the name of your supplier...must be really good stuff. Standard Boilerplate: That's a joke, no offense, etc, etc. Dave Oh, Dave, no offense taken. I just woke up from that trip....... thanks for the thumbs up. What were we talking about...?

Why what?

The way the math equation works here is that the effect of burn-in for new speaker cable is directly (and uniquely) proportional to how long it has been since they were new and different than what you had before. At first you know they are new and different because you just bought them and installed them. As time progresses you should notice a difference in their newness and difference from what was there before (including no cables at all if it is the first installation of the system) which will be exactly measured by how long it has been. This is burn-in. The longer they burn in the more you will perceive that time has elapsed since they were new and different and that, my friend, is the effect of the burn-in in a nuts shell, and it is a comforting feeling, usually, like a pair of old slippers. With enough burn-in you hardly think about when they were new and different than what went before them. Eventually, given enough time, burn-in can become burn-out and at that point you put them in the recycling bin for scrap. Slippers you just throw away. You could also throw the cables away too or use them to tie up things, kind of like when they used to make baling wire which you could re-use to fix other things on the farm, now they just tie up hay bales with plastic rope, echh! So, to review, for myself as well, the more the wire burns in, the more you notice they are not new anymore and you can hardly remember what you had before. The way they sound now will always be different than the way they sounded before because that was then and now is now, depending on your mood and general state of mind. If you are agitated and not at peace with yourself, burn-in can seem to be a downhill slide, and you feel like everything was better before and now everything is f#@ked . Then the next day, if all goes well and your memory is sieve-like, you will swear they are the best cables ever and that burn-in is directly proportional to "better", in which case the math involved is that the elapsed time of the burn-in is directly proportional to how much you are not being able to tell how long it has been, which is a good thing actually. There is a complex relationship between burn-in and "getting used to it", although not strictly a direct-proportional relationship because of other variables in the equation, not least of which is how much you can get for them at the scrap yard someday, which means, in other words, related to the price of copper, I told you it was complicated, and we all know how complex the study of economics can be with its screwy equations, so you have to add this into the audio equations as well, that, and the psychological effects of these various academic pursuits and just how and why they might apply to our everyday lives, if you know what I mean. This could have been a good place to stop, but I just remembered another important factor, also directly proportional to burn-in time, and that is amortizing the dent in your pocket-book (eg. the price of the cables). Simply put, each day of burn-in is directly proportional to another day later and, no, not deeper in debt as Tennesse Ernie would say, but rather less guilty about having spent your hard-earned cash just because of some hype you were convinced about when you got them, ie. inversely proportional to buyer's remorse. Eventually the most ridiculous expenditure can be forgotten about along with the ex-wife. In actuality, the time-heals-all-wounded-pocket-book phenomenon is inversely proportional to the square of the burn-in time measured relativistically as a spatial dimension. "That was ages ago (miles down the road)...."I forgot how much I paid"...."I don't think it was very much", "they were much less than the retail price, it was a deal I couldn't pass up" "they don't even make them like this anymore, the ones they make now are crap by comparison" "I was lucky to buy several of them then before they went up in price" "glad I don't have to buy them today" and "mine are finally really really really burned-in and real nice!" is the script you need to memorize for that situation. Let your friends drool and resort to buying NOS on eBay to even get close, and theirs will not have all that burn-in time, it will take them years, and by then yours will be even more burned-in, they will never catch up, and certainly not be able to get them for the price you got. Remember, there are vacuum tube collectors who will pay for cool looking old tubes that are burned out, so go ahead, buy those really high priced cables because after they are burned-in and you have enjoyed the experience of burn-in (eg. forgetting when you got them and exactly how much you did pay), you can sell the burned-out cables to, by then I suspect, a "cable collector" who might want to have them in a display case: "burned out $10K audiophile cables and the date"..... This could get you way more than the price of the scap metal for sure. oops --- got to go back to procrastinating..... -Nodal Drench Pips (yes, rearrange the letters to "get clipped and shorn".....believe it or not...) PS. I do agree with a previous poster that you should play the music you have and like through the cables when burning in the cables.This can get advanced, say, if you want your classical to sound funky or your country to be jazzy etc. Knowing what to play and when while burning-in is a delicate art. Many have ruined cables during burn-in by playing the wrong music at the wrong time. It's hard to explain, but be careful when playing bachelor pad music for questionable reasons. Our own memberfini is an expert at knowing what music to play and at what volumes while burning in cables especiallly when other ears are in the vacinity.

I wouldn't try taking those scary looking Fairchild pinches on a plane with that lighter as depicted. That is a lot of microfarads, and we all know that is a code word for Mike Farad which is a doctored up version of the name W. Farad Muhammad. You have to think of everything these days. -Pardon Child Pens I guess that comment went over my head. We best get Sheltie Dave in on it then. Abandoned homes in Cheney are a great source of tubes... ; ) Here's the latest pinch from fairchild:

I was just showing off, eg. "I can name that album in one pixel..... sort of thing", those black and white covers are a giveaway.... -Dona Schlepp Rind ps, our friend Bob Lee turned me onto the 46 thing. Oscar Peterson/Milt Jackson-"Two of the Few" The data for 46 set-up as class A1 shows the screen tied to the plate at the socket. Seems quite similar to a 45. And like you point out...cheaper...hmmm.

Is he, are you, coming to the left coast? Yah, take the tour, we can all go out to the local recycletown and look for discarded industrial dusty vacuum tube laden whatchamacallits. -Sand Children Pop (just rearrange the letters and you get "Clipped and Shorn" .....)

Mike, thanks for the encouragement. I think I will use a breadboard approach for the next project utilizing the more economical 46 tube. And, I should buy some probes for that Oscilloscope sitting on my kitchen table and learn how to use it. I think I have stockpiled some of those James Xfrmrs too. Is that an Oscar Peterson LP I see in your photo? -Land Ciphers Pond

The sellers were probably telling him how good the cabinetry is, that they kept it regularly polished for years, and that it could be used for all kinds of new applications and what a shame to not put thoses cabinets to good use because they thought they looked so nice.

That crazy photo was taken by Mark Deneen. I think he used a special ghosting lens to create the phantom of the opera effect. The large green lights are on the 300B mono blocks. I just got some lambs to eat the grass here. Now I have to learn about sheep. I may need to bring them up on the Very Yak. Let's see....what else. Oh, I am getting ready to transfer some new films to digital, and..... I just figured out a new lazy way to start my own blog. Right, you guessed it. -Hands Cold Nipper

My point is that you don't need to spend a lot or be an EE or even own an oscilloscope to build these simple circuits. There is extensive info on the web and numerous people who have pursued this. These amps work well and one does not necessarily need to go down the path of obsessive audiophile self ambushing. Just build one. Here is a starting point. Further onlne research will reveal the large club of folks who have done these or similar. http://members.myactv.net/~je2a3/simple45.htm http://members.myactv.net/~je2a3/se300b.htm http://www10.brinkster.com/azcruz/JE_300BDX.html -Planner Chip Odds

I have built two "sucessful" (acceptable to me) SET amps. But I have to admit I took a simple go-for-it approach just copying the schematics from online sources getting the parts and assembling. I do have some assembling skills honed by hanging out with Mark Deneen. But I didn't see myself getting into the breadboarding stage, which I probably should have because I could have learned more. It's like working without a net, but I did get lucky, also I triple check all my wiring before firing up on the Very Yak that lives on my table. One amp is a stereo on a single chassis and uses either a 45 or a 2A3, the other is a pair of mirrored monoblocks using the 300B. I think both schematics came from JE labs online suggestions. Both amps worked right out the chute, except I had to do some tube rolling to get the best sound. The 300B amps didn't reallly impress me until I acquired a pair of high quality Sophia Electric tubes, the sound was harsh with the Electro Harmonix. I was planning to build another, but alas, my interests have cycled to other things. It really takes focus and I haven't yet even cleaned up the table where I last worked. The 45/2A3 really sounds fine with my budget LaScalas and Blueberry (NOS tubes). -Rand Chop Spindle To keep from getting them scuffed and scratched.

Hi Mike, What is the deal with the plastic bags (transformers?). -Sad Drench Poplin

With a portable propane torch you could carefully heat to fold over corners. In any case you have given me a good idea for cleaning LPs with rainwater. Another idea: with plenty of adhesive, stack thousands, centered on long steel roundstock "spindle" to make columns for construction. Larger roundstock plus stack of 45s for smaller diameter columns. If we work this out, we could probably build the whole structure out of vinyl LPs. Open up a little music shop and call it "Fini's House of Records". -Pad Inch Splendor

this thread is about to get even more interesting.... -Pranced Dolphins

He doesn't look too happy not being able to lick his stitches or anything else. -C&S

I clean 78s with a mild solution of ammonia, learned this from old time collectors. Not to be used on vinyl however. Too bad about that Tito Puente 78, was it a Tico or an RCA? (or other?) With great music, almost all , but not all 78s! were reissued during the LP era, and then again to CD. Admittedly the 78s sound great. More speed=more fidelity, generally (depending on your playback system). You can tell which 78s became obscure if they did not make it to the first generation of 10" LPs (also a great collectible when it comes to TP). When there is a hairline crack but the record is still whole, I have (and other collectors as well) put a little super glue on the edge to keep that crack from opening further. This has to do with preserving very rare recordings, best to transfer to other media for archive, especially if it is a super rare one not likely to ever be replaced. Super rare for me would be obscure Cuban Son from the 20s not on known reissues anywhere, that and some similar Arsenio Rodriguez (also Cuban), music which contains important musicological revelations, eg. certain rhythmic patterns or instruments utilized before anyone thought. For every worthwhile obscure type of 78 record there exist some agressive and dedicated collector, I have seen prices go to 4 figures for some things. Rare early blues of course is the other similar area. c7s

There are some very real reasons those obscure blues 78s are scarce and thus valuable. Cannot recall offhand how many of those my grannie had in her collection, but the number zero seems to come to mind. How about your grannie you all? If its the excitement of the hunt and the thrill of finding treasure you are after set your sites on those Decca 78s of Bing Crosby and you surely will be a happy camper. Whoa!.....early one sided red label RCA Caruso......holy grail...... c7s