picky

Merry Christmas from Verna, Ms. Rose and myself to all! Big doings tonight! Stay safe! -Glenn

Happy Thanksgiving to all from me, Verna and Ms. Rose! -Glenn

I think the city's tactics really suck, considering the Klipsch corporation has been paying taxes and providing jobs in that town since the 1940's! There's nothing like biting the hand that feeds you! I do not know the entire circumstances revolving around ownership of the building and such. However, I do know that due to Mrs. Klipsch's age and health, the museum is seldom open on a regular schedule. My wife Verna and I have made numerous attempts over the years to visit the museum on the various days and times the sign said it was open and we've always found it closed. Assuming the city owns the building, perhaps, the city is thinking in terms of revenue, as cities normally do, and figures they can make more money with a better managed and more popular venue in there to attract a larger audience? I do not know what the museum's attendance numbers are, but it would be hard to believe that with no normal hours being adhered to, it's probably a sure thing that folks are not exactly lined-up at the door waiting to get in. To sum up: I hope the city finds it in their heart to treat Mrs. Klipsch with the respect she deserves and stops its strong-arm tactics! That really sucks! Hopefully, through their lawyers, that can come to an amicable agreement. That's just my two cents. -Glenn

This afternoon, the first thing I looked at was trying the power cord for the receiver in a different AC tap on the back of the line conditioner that has a slightly different filtering configuration. This made no difference in the hum. Next, I lifted all analog input devices from the back panel as everything else uses optical. No luck. The hum is at a very low level, but before the repair, there was no hum at all. However, there's a couple of positive things I have noticed since the repair: The input level for CDs seems to be better than before. I seem to be getting more volume while playing CDs, which was a minor issue in the past. Most CDs are now plenty loud with the volume at -17 db, where before, I had to go to nearly -10 db to get satisfactory volume. Also, the sound seems somewhat fuller and richer than before, which leads be to wonder if maybe this receiver was being held-back by manufacturing flaws from day one before the card failed completely? At any rate, even with this very low level hum being introduced, which seems to disappear when program material is introduced, if the actual sound quality has improved due to all of the parts finally functioning correctly and the alignment now being up to spec, perhaps, if I can't resolve the hum, maybe I can live with it? We'll see. -Glenn

I finally found the time this morning to hook-up all of the connections to our home theater receiver that we got back from repair Monday. Other household responsibilities took priority this week. My friend Bill Ferguson helped me place the receiver back into the equipment rack on Monday. It's a two-person job because the receiver weighs about 70 pounds and you must lift it up into a narrow space that is over 5 feet off the floor. Safety-first! It took me about two hours this morning to make all of the re-connections, make a couple of corrections and to re-calibrate the room acoustically. Everything seems to work as before, except there is now a faint, 60 Hz power line hum at system idle that wasn't there before. Now begins the task of troubleshooting each input connection. {sigh}

The Lab returned the bad board to me and installed the new one. The bad DSP board is shown below (bad coil). There was also a bad Pico fuse that had to be replaced and some IC's needed to be re-flowed on the DSP3 board.

Rack: Masking tape is holding IR control flooder wires out of the way.

Front Pioneer Elite VSX-49TXi

Well, well, two months, almost to the day: The lab called yesterday and the DSP Board came in from Pioneer in Japan last week and the receiver was ready to be picked up. So I brought it home and it is sitting on my wet bar waiting for my best friend to come over after work today so he and I can hoist this 70-pound monster back into the top slot of my equipment rack so I can hook it back up. There will probably be beer involved..... AFTERWARDS!!! Wish me luck! -Glenn

NOSValves: Kind regards to you, Craig! I haven't talked with you since you rebuilt my '61 EICO ST70, which is still kicking out the jams in our garage via the Heresey III's! I hope you and the Mrs. are both well and Max looks like a great little guy to have around! Take care my friend! -Glenn

Used it outside while I was re-staining the deck yesterday. Worked great with either my old iPhone 4 or my new Samsung Galaxy S4 Android phone. I hooked it up to my 1961 EICO Vacuum tube, integrated amp in the garage that drives my pair of Heresy III's.

This little puck-sized device is gonna make life a lot more fun around here! The Belkin HD Bluetooth Receiver (Model: G3A2000): Connects to any audio device that has phono (RCA), optical or coaxial audio jacks and gives you the ability to stream acceptable-quality audio from your Bluetooth-enabled, cellphone wirelessly, as long as your phone is within 35-40 feet from the box! Very cool and sounds good too. No need to spend $100-400 bucks on one of those new Bluetooth speakers! Use what you already own! In our living room...

Dee: You are spot-on, sir! This economy has not only impacted audio, but when coupled with on-line news and media and the ability to get free information, it has really taken down a lot of newspapers and magazines! -Glenn

Sign of the times? Back in May of this year, 'Home Theater Magazine', a popular publication amongst many home theater enthusiasts such as myself, which features home theaters that are built by their owners and actually featured my very own home theater in their June 2006 issue and again in January 2007, decided to purchase 'Sound & Vision Magazine', which began life many years ago as 'Stereo Review'. These are the two-largest publications currently available that are devoted to the hobby we all love so much: Audio and Video. As of the October issue of 'Sound & Vision' (available now), the two publications have been combined into one. A sad day? Perhaps. I'm sure there will be a lack of coverage on many of the favorite columns and articles that readers looked forward to each month, but at least both pubs haven't bowed-out entirely. Although, I am very much "virtual-info-centric", I still enjoy the monthly ritual of receiving a color magazine in the mail and paging through it over morning coffee one page at a time. Call me old-fashioned, but I do read an awful lot and it's a huge stress reliever, not to mention it helps keep the old brain cells activated.....I think. I know it won't be the same as when both magazines came to my door, but if this month's issue is an indication of what is to come, it is full of great information that I have been seeking out. In case you are interested, this month's issue (October 2013) features an article on digital audio, entitled: "Getting Started In Computer Audio" (pg34) and explains the best ways to acquire, store, distribute and play-back digital music content, included a discussion on codecs. There's another article on in-wall subwoofers, not to mention the usual equipment reviews and critiques' on movies and CDs, So, I guess we'll see how things shake out with the combined mags. I know there's a HUGE amount of info available on line covering our hobby, but it's still nice to curl up with a hand-held resource occasionally and it gives me the excuse to have that third cuppa joe! - Glenn

Former Klipsch headphone engineer, Mark Blanchard wrote me that the Samsung headphones are not supplied by Klipsch.

Over the weekend I picked up two new Samsung Galaxy S4 phones and the included headphones look and sound remarkably like Klipsch Android headphones, right down to the different sized ear inserts. Have any of you heard anything? -Glenn