John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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As I have a penchant for simply mic'd and minimally processed acoustic music I am very much in the real thing camp and will if necessary compromise one aspect of the system to support that. A good set of speakers should work well with all music, but us peasants sometimes have to chose :)
 
Anyone know a source for Niobium-Titanium wire?
ridikas,

Why are you looking for NbTi? At temperatures above it's critical point, it has three basic properties.
1. It is darn near impossible to solder to.
2. It is a poor electrical conductor.
3. It is quite difficult to bend if it is thick enough to survive several amperes.

It is possible to take a small wire and strip the copper jacket either chemically or by prolonged immersion in a solder pot. However, the fine filaments of NbTi are flammable, they can be ignited by a static discharge.

jn
 
Name a good album by MOFI. I haven't come across one yet...

I have some MFSL LPs which sound very good: the original Beatles box set which I bought maybe 1982. Until the release of the FLAC versions on USB they were the finest releases of Beatles masters I have heard. Hardly flat sounding, they retained much of the studio dynamic which had been lost in many commercial pressings. They did not peak unlimit or do any other digital restoration, so they have the analog compression of the original 2-track masters, but they were pristine transfers. All in all, not a challenging transfer considering the potential for quality of the JVC vinyl and pressing, but the result was quite good.

Of course, it helped to be a Beatles fan...

Cheers,
Howie
 
When I was a kid my dad worked on aircraft in the Royal Canadian Navy by day, but was a self-taught jeweller after work. Large diameter silver wire was a lot cheaper than the fine stuff, and you can draw it to whatever diameter you want. So dad got a drawplate, and in the basement of our bungalow there was a hallway about 30 feet long, with a doorway at one end. I would hold the drawplate braced against the door jamb while he pulled the wire through a series of smaller holes. The hallway wasn't long enough.

Really cool, I never would have tried that myself.

Was it a lubricated process or dry?

I ask because I have had to contend with copper that had been lubricated during forming, drawing, and machining. All three tend to force lubricant into any pores of the metal, then covered by subsequent working such that cleaning processes will not remove it all. The end result is a part that when soldered using non activated flux (R), the oils will evolve and cause the surface to passivate, destroying solderability. The LHC learned that the hard way, as their piece parts used for interconnects had roughly 90% dewetting when immersed into a solder pot with R type flux. Activated flux cannot be used because the zinc chloride breaks down to HCl in heat, that attacks all the stainless steel vacuum bellows (5 to 10 mils thick, .005-.010 inch) when carried in the helium stream.

jn
 
I disagree, but would need a lot of beer to continue this discussion, as it we do not agree that a straight wire with gain will pass the signal transparently then we have to go back to basics and build from there. Which requires beer :)

That´s not fair game- because by birth i´m obliged to agree that more beer is always a good idea.... :)

Beside that i think you´ve posted a non sequitur wrt "wire with gain"

Now we're not even talking two channels. I've heard 100% acoustic recordings (whole orchestra huddled around huge horns). No sound of capacitors there.

Not sure if i misread your post as i was actually describing what Stokowski reportedly liked while working with the people that did the first public demonstration of stereo broadcasting in the usa around 1930.
Maybe i´m able to find it in the archive, i once had seen a picture from that time where Stokowski was doing the controls at the reproduction site while Harvey Fletcher was standing behind him with a skeptical look on his face, as if questioning himself if Stowkoski would do to much....
 
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Beside that i think you´ve posted a non sequitur wrt "wire with gain"

Which proves my point that this is a beer level discussion.

Aside: I have no issue with tonal modification controls when used to enhance pleasure as long as they have a bypass. Wayne K is doing some interesting experiments with conversion from L/R to M/S and then filtering each channel separately before combining back. I could be tempted to get a DEQ2496...
 
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