Recent Posts

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10
1
Music Discussion / Re: WHY and What are you Listening to?
« Last post by S Clark on February 07, 2025, 05:59:56 PM »
It's been a long time since I posted here.
Picked up a copy of RCA Living Stereo LSC 2487, Guitar Concertos with Julian Bream.
It's 1961 first pressing, quite clean.   Back in the day it was on Harry Pearson's list at The Absolute Sound, and later on the Merrill guide to RCA as his top ratings.  A few years back Analogue Productions got the master tapes, and re issued a new version. 
It's very detailed, guitar in just feet a few yards away on the stage with Malcolm Arnold conduction the first recording of his guitar Concerto.   The other Concerto is the Guiliani Concerto for Guitar and Strings, one of the first concertos written for guitar in 1812.
And it was a Demo copy! 
2
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by S Clark on February 07, 2025, 11:57:11 AM »
Hey Robin!!   How about them... cough, cough.  I'm impressed you are still using that Cowboys logo.   
Hope things are going well for you.
3
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by Nick B on February 07, 2025, 10:25:28 AM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick

And I'm betting you're not in your 70's either. I never took pills or eye drops either when I was young. Today at 73, I take 30 pills a day, eye drops twice a day and an eye injection of Eylea every 13 weeks in my right eye for the last 9 years. Then again, I'm outliving my father/grandfather by 7 years, I'm still active and going strong with 20/20 vision, thanks to today's drugs that weren't available back then for them. And above all, my hearing is still great, no pills needed for that. LOL

Cheers,
Robin

Just turned 74. Deal with glaucoma which has affected my vision. So that's why the 2 rx drops. Probably need back surgery to fix a disc. But have good energy, mental clarity etc as I maintain a low carb, whole food way of eating. 5"8 and 145 lbs. I feel good making the effort to feel good. I have 3 very close friends who have significant health problems and are content with their status quo. But we all have our priorities.

Like you, I am fortunate to have very good hearing 🎶

Cheers from the Las Vegas area.
Nick

No kidding Nick, I never would have guessed. You do have an audio gear appetite of a youngster.  :thumb:

Anywho, I do recommend reliablecanadianpharmacy as an option, along with a Prescription Plan D. It has worked for me when I was taking Januvia and now with Restasis eye drops. It pays to have options and to shop around for the best price. :thumb:

Cheers,
Robin                                                                                                 

On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick

And I'm betting you're not in your 70's either. I never took pills or eye drops either when I was young. Today at 73, I take 30 pills a day, eye drops twice a day and an eye injection of Eylea every 13 weeks in my right eye for the last 9 years. Then again, I'm outliving my father/grandfather by 7 years, I'm still active and going strong with 20/20 vision, thanks to today's drugs that weren't available back then for them. And above all, my hearing is still great, no pills needed for that. LOL

Cheers,
Robin

Just turned 74. Deal with glaucoma which has affected my vision. So that's why the 2 rx drops. Probably need back surgery to fix a disc. But have good energy, mental clarity etc as I maintain a low carb, whole food way of eating. 5"8 and 145 lbs. I feel good making the effort to feel good. I have 3 very close friends who have significant health problems and are content with their status quo. But we all have our priorities.

Like you, I am fortunate to have very good hearing 🎶

Cheers from the Las Vegas area.
Nick

No kidding Nick, I never would have guessed. You do have an audio gear appetite of a youngster.  :thumb:

Anywho, I do recommend reliablecanadianpharmacy as an option, along with a Prescription Plan D. It has worked for me when I was taking Januvia and now with Restasis eye drops. It pays to have options and to shop around for the best price. :thumb:

Cheers,
Robin                                                                                                 

Robin,

I saved the pharmacy link just in case. When one gets to be our age, things can change quite quickly....

My system has changed quite radically the last few years and for the better. I owe that to a couple of guys here who have given me such good advice. I have another Neotech silver/gold wire IC coming on Monday and then a Class D amp and power cord as well for evaluation per request from the manufacturer. I'm quite interested in that because I'm already quite fond of my Class D Orchard Audio Starkrimson amp.

I noticed you have Butler amps and many years ago I always drooled over the Butler Monad amps. I would really have enjoyed hearing them. Don't know if BK Butler is still active building amps and if he still offers the Monads.

Nick
4
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by satfrat on February 07, 2025, 02:20:35 AM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick

And I'm betting you're not in your 70's either. I never took pills or eye drops either when I was young. Today at 73, I take 30 pills a day, eye drops twice a day and an eye injection of Eylea every 13 weeks in my right eye for the last 9 years. Then again, I'm outliving my father/grandfather by 7 years, I'm still active and going strong with 20/20 vision, thanks to today's drugs that weren't available back then for them. And above all, my hearing is still great, no pills needed for that. LOL

Cheers,
Robin

Just turned 74. Deal with glaucoma which has affected my vision. So that's why the 2 rx drops. Probably need back surgery to fix a disc. But have good energy, mental clarity etc as I maintain a low carb, whole food way of eating. 5"8 and 145 lbs. I feel good making the effort to feel good. I have 3 very close friends who have significant health problems and are content with their status quo. But we all have our priorities.

Like you, I am fortunate to have very good hearing 🎶

Cheers from the Las Vegas area.
Nick

No kidding Nick, I never would have guessed. You do have an audio gear appetite of a youngster.  :thumb:

Anywho, I do recommend reliablecanadianpharmacy as an option, along with a Prescription Plan D. It has worked for me when I was taking Januvia and now with Restasis eye drops. It pays to have options and to shop around for the best price. :thumb:

Cheers,
Robin                                                                                                 
5
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by Nick B on February 06, 2025, 11:29:44 PM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick

And I'm betting you're not in your 70's either. I never took pills or eye drops either when I was young. Today at 73, I take 30 pills a day, eye drops twice a day and an eye injection of Eylea every 13 weeks in my right eye for the last 9 years. Then again, I'm outliving my father/grandfather by 7 years, I'm still active and going strong with 20/20 vision, thanks to today's drugs that weren't available back then for them. And above all, my hearing is still great, no pills needed for that. LOL

Cheers,
Robin

Just turned 74. Deal with glaucoma which has affected my vision. So that's why the 2 rx drops. Probably need back surgery to fix a disc. But have good energy, mental clarity etc as I maintain a low carb, whole food way of eating. 5"8 and 145 lbs. I feel good making the effort to feel good. I have 3 very close friends who have significant health problems and are content with their status quo. But we all have our priorities.

Like you, I am fortunate to have very good hearing 🎶

Cheers from the Las Vegas area.
Nick
6
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by satfrat on February 06, 2025, 11:18:13 PM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick

And I'm betting you're not in your 70's either. I never took pills or eye drops either when I was young. Today at 73, I take 30 pills a day, eye drops twice a day and an eye injection of Eylea every 13 weeks in my right eye for the last 9 years. Then again, I'm outliving my father/grandfather by 7 years, I'm still active and going strong with 20/20 vision, thanks to today's drugs that weren't available back then for them. And above all, my hearing is still great, no pills needed for that. LOL

Cheers,
Robin
7
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by Nick B on February 06, 2025, 10:58:09 PM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin

Good to hear from you, Robin. A very nice savings indeed! I only need 2 rx items and there's no charge on one of the meds. I'm so fortunate, but also make an effort to take good care of myself.

Nick
8
General DIY / Re: online pharmacy
« Last post by satfrat on February 06, 2025, 12:03:19 AM »
On the real, I use Reliablecanadianpharmacy monthly to get my prescription Restasis for my eyes. $35/delivered out of pocket verses $368 through my Plan D insurance. Gotta stretch them SS bucks, any way legally possible.

Cheers,
Robin
9
Bipolar System Disorders / Re: I think my System is virtually finished
« Last post by Nick B on February 05, 2025, 06:04:54 PM »
After 45 years since starting this venture, off and on designing everything from scratch, the end
appears extremely close.

I have the dac tonally balanced with the last polyprope installed, via teeter/totter with the speaker,
and just ordered the rest of Jenalabs 6N pure all copper wire for the speaker leads. Probably be
necessary to bend the inductor lead to tweak the highs and bend another inductor lead to tweak the
bass.

I have been bypassing the x ohm resistor that balances the woofer to the full range driver (frd) with
various very high ohmage resistors. Will see what value is optimal. Visitors may prefer a different
high value resistor of course.

Cheers

steve

That is exciting to hear, Steve. Nice that you are able to fine tune your system so precisely. I have not used any Jenalads products to date. I do have another Neotech silver/gold IC coming. I do like the sound a bit better than just high purity silver. Also have a Class D amp coming that's similar to my Orchard Starkrimson, but with a different power supply. This is from Spiritual Sound on the east coast and the owner wants me to try his power cord as well. I am happy that I switched dacs to the Holo Cyan2.
As to your dac, I forgot if you stayed with that original Schiit dac or if you got an upgraded version and continued the mods on that one.

Thanks Nick. Going to all polyprope capacitors in the power supplies in the entire system (except HV main amp
supply that is bypassed with polyprope) makes for a real challenge as one can go much deeper into the inner
detail.

Amazing how different materials alter the sonics of a musical signal, but then is real science. Power supplies
affected by power cords, especially in typical amps that have less filtering in the power supply. Sounds like the
same with Class D amps as well. Interesting.

I finally finished the analog power supply capacitors for the Modi 2 with Mundorf EVO in oil types. I suppose
I might get 6" more total width with a Denafrips or Meitner dac, not worried, and even wonder about
distortions created by other dacs analog sections. Afterall, the analog stages in dacs are very cheap versions of preamplifiers, except without the volume controls.

For newbies, this selection might sound weird, but imo really reveals the transparency of Jeannette's voice,
the ambience, and clapping from the audience etc. It is difficult for me to explain, but when the
orchestra starts, the orchestra just seems to get lost in the venues ambience. But in the string "Reference
Top Notch etc", in the "Music Discussion", there are other selections one can also check out. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_uo_3armwE

Cheers and will see how it goes when Jenny's wire comes.

steve

Hi Steve and thanks for that link and continuing to post the particulars. Very enjoyable. I am fascinated by what can be done with sound reproduction and how much it can be improved and fine tuned. Even though I've been an audio enthusiast since the late 80s, it's only the last couple of years where I've experienced truly good sound. And that journey will continue adding the Neotech silver/gold interconnect and the class D amp and power cord that are coming.

I am still not that well versed in acoustics. But my current setup works well in my dual purpose living room. Maybe one day at another house I will be able to have a dedicated listening room. It's a process for me.... getting better equipment, cables etc and then learning what those items can do. Then getting used to the increased resolution, bigger soundstage etc. One thing I focused on the last few years was noise reduction and having Dave's UberBUSS has certainly helped a lot and saved me time and money.

And I hope all the best on your adventure Nick. Noise reduction is a consideration and glad you mentioned it. Noise
(not hum, but hiss) is often caused by an abundance, unneccessary system gain. Manufacturers always seem to
be producing too much gain in each component. Dacs, for instance, use an unnecessary gainstage of 6db (which
only doubles the signal from 1 volt rms out to 2 volts out) when the preamp and amp already has too much gain
to begin with. (R2R dacs need a buffer stage, an exception.) 

Concerning noise, some tubes and resistors are known causes.
 
I am so glad to hear of your success Nick.

cheers

steve

ps. I added a ps to my last post for those who missed it.

Thanks, Steve. I an curious how you may have addressed noise if it was a problem for you and if there are budget friendly solutions for those who can't afford expensive AC line noise reduction devices.

Yes, three areas for your first question Nick.

1. I only use metal film resistors as a minimum, with lower noise non-inductive wire wound, and
and even lower noise bulk foil resistors preferred. (Even then, the Mills MRA non inductive
wire wound resistors sound quality is preferred to the Dayton non inductive wire wound resistors.)

2. I only use low rp (tube plate resistance) tubes with greatest figure of merit. (also lowest distortion
and most accurate sounding types).

3. The total preamplifier/amplifier gain of ~31db. The amplifier gain is ~10db while the
line preamplifier has ~21db gain. Even this allows the volume to be set between noon and 3pm.

To answer your second question Nick.

The 11A line preamplifier uses 6 B+ filter stages to eliminate interference etc from the AC
line. I know this is virtually impossible for anyone to accomplish with their existing gear.
My amplifier uses 4 stages for the input stage. 

cheers

steve

Thanks, Steve.

Great to get your thoughts on this. I am all solid state right now, but at some point would consider adding a Hattor 6ns7 tube buffer as I enjoy the sound of that tube. Any idea if that tube would be considered low rp?
A more remote possibility in the future would be to add an amp that uses 6ns7 tubes. As I am getting such excellent resolution, I would proceed very carefully to make sure any tube devices would perform very low noise.

Nick

PS   I realize I have really gone off your thread, but this is a small, low volume forum and that's why I have just piggybacked onto your thread. Hope you didn't take offense

No offense taken at all Nick.

The only "small" tubes I use from phono thru amplifier are the JJ E88cc tube (6dj8) with an rp of approx 2.7k.
The distortion of this tube is 1/9th, 19db less than any other tube. It is incredibly sonically accurate with
the proper resistors and capacitor values, brands etc. The 6SN7 is medium  rp, 7.5k or so; much much better
than a 12AT7 or 12AX7, with rps of 60k ohms and higher.

With the JJ E88cc, I was able to make my 11A a perfect preamplifier. That means using my ics, there is not a
sonic change of any sort if the 11A is in the audio system or out. Truly transparent. I could not do it with
any other tube, NOS brands, or new.

A 6SN7 could be used, but if possible, make sure the resistors are super quality Mills, Vishay in the
critical front end. Also keep the number of amp stages and gain to a minimum as that puts less "pressure"
on the pre to amp ic in terms of shielding problems, such as RF pickup and hum.

Combining preamp to amp, an integrated amp, poses its own problems with insufficient power supply design,
including filter stages. To design my amps properly, I had to go mono block  because there just was
not enough room for proper design of the power supplies.

I hope this helps.

steve

Thanks, Steve. Quite interesting. I could not find any specs for the 6ns7 buffer on the Hattor Khozmo website. Based on the quality of the Hattor Big solid state preamp, how excellent it sounds to me and how quiet it is per Dave (he has a different opamp than I do), I would think the tube buffer would be excellent as well. My solid state version uses the very costly AMRG resistors and the pricey New Class D opamp.
The nice thing about owner Arek is he will also build his devices using parts requested by the customer.
I'm not in a hurry....other things have priority
Your mention of the 11A brings back fond memories when I subscribed to Marty's newsletter. Your preamp was his favorite. I miss Marty, and that's been a long time already since he's been gone.
Thanks again for your input.

Nick
10
New Member Introductions / Re: Hello Again
« Last post by Nick B on February 05, 2025, 06:40:19 AM »
Welcome. Good to have you here!
Nick
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10