"According to a Chinese saying, “In heaven there is dragon meat, and on earth there is donkey meat.” But it has to be pure donkey meat, straight up. Messing with heaven on earth, Walmart’s China operation has apparently sold and now recalled fox meat-tainted “five spice” donkey meat and created quite a headache for the global retailer."
I did buy a nice fox tail paint brush but maybe...
In poor countries, such as my own Serbia, there is a tradition of eating donkey and horse meat. Neither is mass distributed today, but there is one place I know of which does sell horse meat.
Just like the national preference for pork is easily explained - the 500 years we spent under Ottoman rule pushed us towards pork because it was religiously unacceptable to the Ottomans, who were muslim. Thus, it would not be taken away from the poor even as taxes.
Anyway, if you leave a horse meat steak in plain milk for 24 hours, much like beef, it will become so soft and pliable that you may not even need a knife. I kid you not.
DVV, your explanations are highly inaccurate, if legendary, and people unfamiliar with Serbia might take them seriously.
Donkeys are so rare in Serbia, and so is donkey meat, that its consumption is neglectable and all but traditional. Same goes for horse meat because horses were scarce and valuable.
Pork meat is most widely diffused in Serbia because it is the type of cattle best suited to forestal areas which cover large parts of the country. As a matter of fact, you will find inclination to pork meat and dishes throughout European regions where forests prevail, in italy, France, Germany and elsewhere.
Donkeys are so rare in Serbia, and so is donkey meat, that its consumption is neglectable and all but traditional. Same goes for horse meat because horses were scarce and valuable.
Pork meat is most widely diffused in Serbia because it is the type of cattle best suited to forestal areas which cover large parts of the country. As a matter of fact, you will find inclination to pork meat and dishes throughout European regions where forests prevail, in italy, France, Germany and elsewhere.
DVV, I think that you and I are on the same track.
I also found the first Otala amp to be a winner. Oh yes, I compared it to plenty others, even tubes, and it still sounded better than just about anything else, for a couple of decades. Just like you, I found it singularly better, at almost any price. I have also found that simple circuits, usually necessarily Class A, can sound pretty good too. This follows the 'less is best path', departing slightly from the Otala, which has sophistication.
I find that MOST engineering examples, with lots of extra buffering (more series parts) do not sound as good, as well as designs that are directly modeled after op amps.
I hear what I hear, I am glad that I can hear the difference.
I also found the first Otala amp to be a winner. Oh yes, I compared it to plenty others, even tubes, and it still sounded better than just about anything else, for a couple of decades. Just like you, I found it singularly better, at almost any price. I have also found that simple circuits, usually necessarily Class A, can sound pretty good too. This follows the 'less is best path', departing slightly from the Otala, which has sophistication.
I find that MOST engineering examples, with lots of extra buffering (more series parts) do not sound as good, as well as designs that are directly modeled after op amps.
I hear what I hear, I am glad that I can hear the difference.
You two should get out of the city more often and go to remote rural places. For example, go to Vladičin Han, and from there visit some of the neighboring villages. For contrast, as that is a mountainous area, go to places like Mionica near Valjevo.
Donkey meat has all but disappeared today, I wouldn't know even where to start looking for it these days, but for horse meat, go buy it on the piazza by the Piramida centar. There's a "Meat Ally" (I just call it that for fun) there when approaching from Blok 45, consisting of something like 8 or 9 butcher shops, one if which adverstises horse meat on its big shop window. I should know, that's where I buy most of my meat, and I did try horse meat once, I was just curious.
Once famous products from old Yugoslavia, mosta notably Gavrilovićeva sausage, constained BOTH donkey and horse meat. Today's version contains mostly fat and ground meat leftovers, I am sad to say.
Donkey meat started disappearing as donkeys were replaced first by horses, and in later days, by motorized vehicles.
As for linking pork with forests, that's simply ridiculous. If you mean boar (divlja svinja), then yes, but don't read Asterix too seriously. Pigs are domestic, not wild animals, and they are all over Serbia, literally everywhere. There isn't a serious farmer in Serbia who doesn't own chickens for eggs and an occasional soup, and pork for basic supply of meat, lard, pehaps sausages and "čvarci", usually a cow or two for milk, except perhaps in extremely poor areas and/or difficult mountain terrains. In which case they likely have goats for milk and meat and chickens for eggs.
Donkey meat has all but disappeared today, I wouldn't know even where to start looking for it these days, but for horse meat, go buy it on the piazza by the Piramida centar. There's a "Meat Ally" (I just call it that for fun) there when approaching from Blok 45, consisting of something like 8 or 9 butcher shops, one if which adverstises horse meat on its big shop window. I should know, that's where I buy most of my meat, and I did try horse meat once, I was just curious.
Once famous products from old Yugoslavia, mosta notably Gavrilovićeva sausage, constained BOTH donkey and horse meat. Today's version contains mostly fat and ground meat leftovers, I am sad to say.
Donkey meat started disappearing as donkeys were replaced first by horses, and in later days, by motorized vehicles.
As for linking pork with forests, that's simply ridiculous. If you mean boar (divlja svinja), then yes, but don't read Asterix too seriously. Pigs are domestic, not wild animals, and they are all over Serbia, literally everywhere. There isn't a serious farmer in Serbia who doesn't own chickens for eggs and an occasional soup, and pork for basic supply of meat, lard, pehaps sausages and "čvarci", usually a cow or two for milk, except perhaps in extremely poor areas and/or difficult mountain terrains. In which case they likely have goats for milk and meat and chickens for eggs.
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I don't know about you John, but I was stupid enough to sell my unit. Which means I shall have to make another, which is perhaps a good thing, I was never really happy with my old board outlay, I always felt it could have been better. In my defence, I was like 22 years old then and just starting out to make my own things.
In 1978, I would have argued with you that complex designs SHOULD do better. In 1979, I heard that German LAS amp and understood that I was wrong. 22 transistors per channel, of which the input stage was a simple differential amp with a current mirror and an actice single transistor CCS, while the VAS was a standard cascode, again with a single transistor CCS. The rest were two transistors for protection two predrivers, two drivers and 4 parallel/series output devices.
Its open loop was merely out to about 4 kHz, if memory serves, but closed loop its frequency response went a tad over 1 MHz. And it slewed at just a bit over 100 V/uS.
Yet, quite obviously, whoever designed it knew EXACTLY which buttons to push. I was almost in tears when I had to return it, and its owner sold it off later on, on the sly, exchanging it for a Phase Linear amp. While not bad, it was way below the LAS, even if it was rated at twice the watts. I heard about it after it was already gone.
Regarding hearing, as you say, I hear what I hear. Experience taught me that I hear more than most at my age, and I know I don't hear as much as I used to like 40 years ago, so I think of it like this - perhaps another unit is better, but I don't hear the difference any more, so I'm happy with what I opted for.
@DVV,
FMA is serious stuff D, top shelf sonics, his phono stage is very flexible and the pop and click feature, unlike the DBX unit i had from yore, works, we were not able to detect any degradation in sonics with it being in or out, just a illumination of pop and clicks. There is a waiting list for units, a friend has one of his phonostages.
Because of the demand and long wait periods, used prices are higher for units than when new.
Model?
Donkeys
For more than a decade, Italians were travelling around Greece, buying any and all donkeys they could find, bringing them to Italy for consumption.
When I was young, horse meat was sold in northern Greece.
Good Armenian basturma was made out from horse meat.
Arabic was made out of camel meat.
George
@DVV,
FMA is serious stuff D, top shelf sonics, his phono stage is very flexible and the pop and click feature, unlike the DBX unit i had from yore, works, we were not able to detect any degradation in sonics with it being in or out, just a illumination of pop and clicks. There is a waiting list for units, a friend has one of his phonostages.
Because of the demand and long wait periods, used prices are higher for units than when new.
That's about what I heard, so I don't doubt it.
But to me, there's a lot of difference between extreme high quality and a new concept. I respect both, but that's not the same game.
I don't remember the model name after all these years, but it was an FM stereo receiver rated at some 70-100 WPC into 8 Ohms.
I just remember being damn impressed with what I was hearing.
That's bad luck, John, mine was a case of induced stupidity, and worst of all, my own, so I have nobody to blame but myself. I really boo-booed that.
You take good care of it John, refresh the caps, you know the drill, get it back into pristine condition - and enjoy.
Hi,
Only heard an Electrocompaniet once.
I wasn't convinced at all by the lilliputian, shrunken image it rendered.
It was really odd. Sounded fine otherwise though.
Admittedly it was hooked up to a Mark Levinson stack of Quad 55 ESL with a Kelly ribbon tweeter in a rather small room.
Probably not an ideal combo.
Re: Donkey's meat; we often find donkey's meat sausages offered on the local markets that are made artisanally in France.
Sweet tasting much like horse meat really.
Re: Simple topologies: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
I feel that applies rather well to all things audio.
Ciao,
Only heard an Electrocompaniet once.
I wasn't convinced at all by the lilliputian, shrunken image it rendered.
It was really odd. Sounded fine otherwise though.
Admittedly it was hooked up to a Mark Levinson stack of Quad 55 ESL with a Kelly ribbon tweeter in a rather small room.
Probably not an ideal combo.
Re: Donkey's meat; we often find donkey's meat sausages offered on the local markets that are made artisanally in France.
Sweet tasting much like horse meat really.
Re: Simple topologies: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
I feel that applies rather well to all things audio.
Ciao,
Hi,
Only heard an Electrocompaniet once.
I wasn't convinced at all by the lilliputian, shrunken image it rendered.
It was really odd. Sounded fine otherwise though.
Admittedly it was hooked up to a Mark Levinson stack of Quad 55 ESL with a Kelly ribbon tweeter in a rather small room.
Probably not an ideal combo.
Re: Donkey's meat; we often find donkey's meat sausages offered on the local markets that are made artisanally in France.
Sweet tasting much like horse meat really.
Re: Simple topologies: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
I feel that applies rather well to all things audio.
Ciao,
The Electrocompaniet was a modified version of the original Otala/Lohstroh amp. In my view, it didn't sound as good as the original, something was lost.
On French sausages: I was given a gourmet tour of French sausiges by a friend, who is a travelling salesman and knows where to go, so he bought some along the way from the north to the south of France. Obviously, far from presenting everything available, but even so, it was a memorable experience. Very convincing and very tasty. Bravo! Encore!
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