RealMarkDeneen

Hi TWK-- Definitely LTNS! Thanks for the WB! I'm always in awe of people who can cook well AND stay healthy. Sadly, I know too many good cooks that become afflicted with burdensome weight and other problems, that I chalk up to "too much of a good thing." Yes, absolutely true that it is possible and desireable to cook and maintain great nutrition! That's a skill I don't have. I can do one, or the other, not both. I began "eating boring" quite a few years back, and I am now quite adapted to it. My wife is the opposite - she wants to eat something new and different at every meal. It's not helping her. I stay with the highest possible quality of the fewest possible foods. I go 18 hours daily from previous dinner to next day's break fast. I would go 24-hours, but it makes my wife nervous for reasons of her lack of appreciating the benefits, which I find pretty important. At my 4 PM "feeding" (LOL), I try to eat most fat. Fat doesn't spike blood sugar, and keeps any feelings of hunger at bay for, well, 18-hours or so. Nice to see you are doing well! I haven't seen yet many of the "old faces". Stay healthy!

A loss of faith would vary by culture, I think. Gold is more greatly admired/appreciated in India and Asia than in North America. Being physical, it is attractive in dowries, generational inheritance, and high-density "emergency value". I suspect the bullion value today would be a great deal higher if the "paper gold" derivitive markets were properly policed, or better yet, eliminated.

JD had a beautiful voice. I love singing the old Seeker songs on guitar. Well, at 79 she almost made the average. RIP.

And this... Not surprisingly, Jimmy Webb writes prose as well (or better) than writing songs.

Gets better everytime I read it.

Re-discovering the "deeply traditional" (pre-industrial) human diet.

My vintage Martin collection plus an Acoustisonic and a Squire bass. Oldest is a 1920, newest is a 1968.

The devil is in the details: "properly designed and executed tone control circuit does not degrade the signal quality ...." That's the challenge. Engineers would spend a lot of time arguing first over, "just what should a useful tone control DO?" Is 20dB boost at 30 Hz, necessary? Is 3dB cut at 1kHz enough? What's the value of 10dB cut at 20kHz? Maybe a 10-band parametric EQ should be embedded into a preamp? In fact, is "tone control" a different entity from "equalization?" The number and quality of parts involved surely is an issue for cost and SQ. Scratchy pots, cheap capacitors, additional stages, certainly are parts of the decision. Extra stages absolutely 100% WILL alter the SQ. I doubt any audio engineer would argue against that. The system also presents issues. If bookshelf speakers are in use, isn't SOME bass-boost useful? In certain glassy rooms, or if using some peaky phono cartridges, isn't some treble cut useful? Also, no two producers agree on how to EQ and master recordings, so there is no consistency there to rely upon. The last statement about the reasons TC were eliminated is a dubious opinion. A more likely reason is that engineers could not imagine a TC system that would be meaningful for "most" of their buyers. If you look at the older circuits, from say a PAS 3, I doubt many contemporary users would find it useful as all the cuts and boosts are centered at 1kHz. Possibly useful in 1968, but today? I think a good reason to leave them off might be that parametric equalizers are a better answer for people who like to fiddle the tone. Just guessing about what tone adjustments would be useful sounds like a deadly waste of time.

@marvel. Those are some very fine guitars! My initial purchases were drednaught guitars and they were just too large for me to comfortably hold. I tried some new Taylors and Martins of that size. Then I began trying small body parlor guitars and the magic came into place. I began with the Taylor GS Mini -- wonderful guitar! Then after buying many vintage Martins, I one day received the '54 00-18 and it was live at first strum! It's as light as a feather, dry as a bone, and tone that gives me goose bumps. I also have a restored 1920 Martin 0-18 that sounds great but has a V-neck that isn't to my liking. As recently as May, I bought a big 1972 Yamaha L-10 drednaught on a lark. But alas, too big.

Thanks Dude! Yeah, I love that style. Is this the man you refer to? Wow: My favorite player "using the whole guitar" is Tommy Emmanuel. I'm strictly a campfire cowboy sort of player. I probably enjoy the singing as much or more than the guitar playing. Getting lost in great songs is my meditation of sorts. It clears the head like nothing else I can do. Time disappears. The poetry of it erases mental garbage like nothing else I am aware of.

BTW, what kind of guitar are you playing? A few year back, after some surgeries, I needed a new interest and I took up acoustic guitar again. After tryiing lots of guitars our, I settled on the small body vintage Martins. My current player is a 1954 Martin 00-18 starburst I call "Rusty."

The Duke --- Sounds good. I can't recall actual numbers on rise time, but I know the bandwidth was an order of magnitude wider. I've always been a believer is Stu Hegeman's wide-bandwith theory. I'm happy to hear someone is still farting around with it. It was especially fun for me because I was not experienced with SS amps at all. Intermittant fasting: Indeed. I eat twice a day, 10am and 4pm. So, I get an automatic 18-hour mini-fast each day. Maybe once every two weeks I will fast a whole 24-hours. I would do more extreme fasting, except that my wife is not a believer, and gets worried/annoyed/unhappy when I experiment. Since I'm a beleiver in "Happy wife, happy life" I don't push it. I would very much like to try a regimine of 1-meal per day. I think that is probably the ideal, or perhaps 1-meal in two days. Something like that. What is clear and uncontrovertible to me is that fasting time gives the body time to "clear up and clean up" garbage. I try to make sure my 4pm has mostly fats, then I know I will not experience any sense of hunger at all the next morning. @Marvel I'm really sorry to hear about your cancer. Cancer scares the hell our of me. My wife had a "scare" in the sprint. I know so many people fighting cancer right now, it's painful. Take good care of your self and let's hope you get through it.

Probably similar to that. I refer to it as more of a traditional diet. Most likely the diet of my great grandparents. The large RED X's are on sugar, refined white flour, vegetable oil, all commercially deep fried foods, and processed carbohydrates like chips, crackers, and the endless junk foods. The Duke---Did you do the Black Gate caps too? I've heard they are hard to get now. I dunno, I'm not deep in that cave anymore. What I liked about the results on The Duke were that it was considerably faster than stock, and didn't have that bit of "glare" common to amps of that kind of design. It got a big improvement in rise time and it produced some very fine 10k square waves. The original OpAmps were dog slow. What might not be documented in Bruce's package that I made, was that all the small compensation caps - maybe 6 of them?- had to be hand-tweaked to eliminate ringing. I'd be hard pressed to say exactly what the BG caps did, but I do think they contributed to the overall SQ. I'll bet there are far better OpAmps available today. Gee, that was back in like 2007 or something. Ranch? With cattle? Horses? Sheep? Alpaca? Schu - It's clarified butter with all the milk solids removed so that it is pure "butterfat." It makes a fantastic snack because you get all the energy with NO spike in blood sugar that accompanies carbohydrate snacks. The coffee is just a vehicle to carry all the fats.

I'm 74 next month. Yes, we're still out in the desert with the jack rabbits, cactus and yucca. People chow! - that's a big subject, and I'm a bit surprised I left any associations to that tag here? My original people chow project was 1994 - well before I was on this forum. Well, anyway, I suppose like many subjects, I probably mentioned it here. My original attempts failed by virtue of a lack of processing machinery needed to combine all the proteins and saturated fats into some kind of sealed bisquit form. But, I am still chasing the "ultimate simplicty in maximum nutrition." I eat saturated fat and protein (from a very small list) with scant carbs and no processed foods, no sugar, no vegetable oil products. My wife thinks it is the most boring diet ever conceived - which would meet one of my objectives: Food should be as boring as filling your gas tank. At the moment, I am sipping on my "Bulletproof Coffee" (espresso with Ghee and C8-MCT OIL, and put in the blender for 1 minute). Ummmm...amazing. How's life for you? Building stuff? Fixing stuff?

No, I've never changed a Tube section to SS, What I did was add a SS current source to the plate of the output tube. It's still a Tube output though.... just more linear. Thanks for the WB, Gary. Hope you're doing well.

Hey there! Thanks for the WB! What kind of modification did I do to your Peach? I'm thinking maybe the "current source" modification? Hope all is well with you.

Hi Gary-- Good to see you here. Are the pCATs working well for you? Thanks for the WB! Thanks Marvel and Coytee. Funny that "The Duke" is still in service. And, your Merlin is still being enjoyed! Hope all of you are healthy and well!

Thanks Travis. I'll do my best to reply promptly to any questions or comments as best I can. Thanks Schu, good to see some old timers here. I originally joined in January of 2000. I hope i see some of those old timers here. I've been gone for...7 years? Something like that. i hope i can help.

If so, the RealMarkDeneen might be able to help. I stress MIGHT. I'm getting pretty fricken' old, and before full blown dementia sets in, i might be able to provide help to those JMA owners who couldn't access me after retirement. To all who got stuck, I apologize. I apologize for not making everything RIGHT. All sorts of mistakes were made, as often happens in life. The only thing I can't do is actual repairs on gear. I'm not even sure if the company will allow me to be here. I'll find out soon, I imagine. If not, best wishes to all my old friends (and the unfriends too), and keep the hobby alive! Cheers, RealMarkDeneen