To be perfectly honest Frank, I drink red wine for health reasons only. Red wine seems to contain more tanine, and tanine (spelling?) is good for cleaning up the veins and blood vessels in general. I tried and discovered that it actually improves my leg situation a bit, nothing radical but I do feel the improvement. So I have a glassful after lunch, I drink it as no great pleasure provider, simply because it does me good.
The only times I drink wine by choice is when I have fish for lunch (as per the old saying that a fish must swim three times, in the sea/river, in the frying pan and in wine) or pasta of any kind. Italians are smart, you'll never catch an Italian eating spaghetti without sipping wine.
On a purely taste level, I'll gladly swap a bottle of wine for beer sixpack.
Similarily to Oz, Serbia also has quite a wine production. Some are good, most are so-so, and some are best avoided. Probably the best local wine is made from a locally developed strain of grapes called "Smederevka" (translates as "Coming from the city of Smederevo", 45 km east of Belgrade on the banks of the Danube). My dad bought a place in that region, and in the early 70ies, it delivered over 3 metric tons of grapes per season. Most of it ended up being turned into what we call "lozovača", a form of brandy distilled from grapes, but ending up clean and clear like water or gin. I know it was very good because we were constantly hounded by affictionados who insisted it was among the best they could lay their hands on.
Which is something of sick joke, because none of us ever used strong booze, and that thing is supposed to be 42-44% alochol. No sugar added, no additives, nothing but grapes. Meaning we mostly gave it away as a bribe, for example, to my local butcher.
What I do love are grapes as a fruit and the pure grape juice obtained from steaming the grapes (Pasteurization so it keeps with zero conservation additives), alcohol content absolute zero. Just heavenly, 100% natural juice. But then, I always was a glutton for fruit juices.
In fact, I suspect life is impossible without tomatoes, grapes and watermelons.
Yes, one thing I did was reduce the intensity of the backlight (LCD set), otherwise I couldn't get a decent black at night; you lose a little bit of strength of the white during the day, but it was worth it for convincing blacks at night - especially satisfying for old B and W movies.
An accurate colourmunki type device should get you closer, but I found with patience, and several rounds of manual fine tuning over several days, that I was able to lock it into an optimum - a click or two on any setting, in either direction, only made it worse.
How people can stomach orange people, etc, I just can't fathom ...
Part of the problem is that you get the Coca Cola wines from us, the stuff that every pub and country store stocks, which is often on special here. I went to Harrods wine department 20 years ago, and the collection of Australian wine was incredibly boring, not a single interesting bottle. And the exporters are still getting it wrong it seems, not sending over enough good stuff ...
Some time ago I was looking at the wine scene here, we have well over 1,000 individual wineries, with huge variety. Peppery? A Queensland red I had once was so strong in this character I couldn't finish it, it was as if the waiter had run the grinder on it for a minute or so.
We have no trouble making big reds - and we're used to it; the latest crop are often limp wristed, with not enough complexity to fill in behind. When it all falls into place you get bigness, intensity, complexity - it becomes an amazing experience to drink the bottle, it gets better with each glass, the last drop is the very best moment of all.
When we did a TV station cameras were starting to have automated white balance or tools to get it right. Not easy as the brain compensates when in the wrong light. The old trick was to use cheap florescent tubes and filament bulbs that gave a very reasonable white for very little money ( the tubes might have been daylight types that cost the same these days as standard. just bought some for $4 at 5 foot ) . We had a colour temperature meter if memory is right? Sony Trinitron was rumoured to have NTSC red. This made them look different to proper PAL monitors. If true or not I can not say. The back of Sony tubes had little magnetic strips placed by hand to correct aberration. The tubes were very hard to set up. My brother taught me better ways of setting grey scale. Do it the book way, then try at different levels. The shadow detail can be blue or green and red if very wrong. Sony tended to be blue. Joy of joy black these days is black and grey is grey. When I asked my brother he said that is linearity without feedback. Most TV avoids NFB I believe to gun drivers ? Hence gun drivers make good audio devices. My brother always fitted the cheap BU208 ( ? ) instead of the Sony part. The Sony one cost 10 times more and was more suspect ( PSU ). Sony tubes had double anodes. They both have to be discharged. The aquadag on the tube backs also acted as capacitor to complete the EHT smoothing from the Cockcroft Walton voltage tripler or whatever. The big deal with Sony was they got rid of the dot shallow mask and had stripes. By arranging the beam to hit more area it was brighter. In the early days that was taking the camera output that was more accurately transcribed by the dot tubes. It was noticeable although not as bright sometimes the other tubes were more accurate. ITT being a favourite of mine.
My brother was very interested in TV. I learned this stuff to be a good brother. I have a mountain of his books to read. He liked valve TV more. Not because he liked valves as far as I know. He just liked the economy of design. We both liked that and I still do.
Just seen a RIAA stage using PCL 86. That is a TV type valve ( 82, 84 all are generics) . ECC83 and EL 84 from bits I have. As the man says EL 84 type pentode will have plenty of drive. Dammed by others. Think it should work very well as EL84 is a device that is almost is a signal valve. EF 184 is the linking device to EL 84 and ECC81.
My brother was very interested in TV. I learned this stuff to be a good brother. I have a mountain of his books to read. He liked valve TV more. Not because he liked valves as far as I know. He just liked the economy of design. We both liked that and I still do.
Just seen a RIAA stage using PCL 86. That is a TV type valve ( 82, 84 all are generics) . ECC83 and EL 84 from bits I have. As the man says EL 84 type pentode will have plenty of drive. Dammed by others. Think it should work very well as EL84 is a device that is almost is a signal valve. EF 184 is the linking device to EL 84 and ECC81.
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If a red wine is too strong you can add water. Very very little. It is surprising how it changes. Bad news to do it but effective. I somethings add lemonade and make " gasoil " or red diesel. If you want to be drunk then sober quickly "gasoil " works well. Same as Champagne and cheap. The bubbles do it. Best to use very cheap Spanish wines if in the UK. The sort that sells for about $1/litre in the Canary islands. Descent stuff actually, bland is the worse it is.
I find if red wine is 11.5 to 12 .5 % is fine. When 13.5 % I have doubts. I don't think it is the alcohol. It is the very high initial sugar content and very tolerant yeasts. Some Belgian beer is of the same strength. Mostly a very pleasant thing to drink. Deceptive is the word. 8% to me is the best strength for that beer. The Chimmey is nice as is the chess if I am right ( Spelling ). Leffe brown beer also. Orval is bitter like English beers. I am sure all the spellings are wrong. Orval I think I remember has a sediment that is best left in the glass to avoid the headache. Then fruit beers which I think would be right now.
I find if red wine is 11.5 to 12 .5 % is fine. When 13.5 % I have doubts. I don't think it is the alcohol. It is the very high initial sugar content and very tolerant yeasts. Some Belgian beer is of the same strength. Mostly a very pleasant thing to drink. Deceptive is the word. 8% to me is the best strength for that beer. The Chimmey is nice as is the chess if I am right ( Spelling ). Leffe brown beer also. Orval is bitter like English beers. I am sure all the spellings are wrong. Orval I think I remember has a sediment that is best left in the glass to avoid the headache. Then fruit beers which I think would be right now.
But hey, we may not have Aussie wine, but we do have Foster's beer, which is I believe from your neck of the woods, Frank. As a matter of fact, we have beer from all over the world, including Mexico, USA, Turkey and just about every brewery there is in Europe.
Which complicates my life. I now have to find somebody who will import not the Budweiser and Miller beer from USA, but John Adams beer.
Which complicates my life. I now have to find somebody who will import not the Budweiser and Miller beer from USA, but John Adams beer.
Dejan, Sri Lanka pays teachers about $250 a month. It seems Serbia not much more ! This is set against world prices for fuel etc. I must say you must be very challenged to build amplifiers in Beograd ? My guess is Australia about $4000 a month and UK $3500 ? That's not the best or worst paid. Care workers get about $2500 if in a slightly better position here in the UK. My Son gets $800 for 22.5 hours a week. It's a call centre and it is fine for him. Dad helps him. He seems mostly to spend it on fuel and food. His mum gave him the car.
My combined gas and electricity bill is about $270 a month averaged. About $90 is electricity. I have insulated the loft last month to see if I can get it down ( $230 for the top grade metalized bubble wrap ). My supplier Eon gave me a comparison with unnamed neighbours. I have 5/6 bedrooms so not a small house. The boiler > 25 year old and superb. If I replaced it it might be 20 years to get the money back. Eon sends me graphs so it will be easy to tell. In summer I use almost exactly as others so the boiler isn't that bad. The walls were insulated years ago with a soft white wool like material ( polyester? ) . The sound improved!!
My combined gas and electricity bill is about $270 a month averaged. About $90 is electricity. I have insulated the loft last month to see if I can get it down ( $230 for the top grade metalized bubble wrap ). My supplier Eon gave me a comparison with unnamed neighbours. I have 5/6 bedrooms so not a small house. The boiler > 25 year old and superb. If I replaced it it might be 20 years to get the money back. Eon sends me graphs so it will be easy to tell. In summer I use almost exactly as others so the boiler isn't that bad. The walls were insulated years ago with a soft white wool like material ( polyester? ) . The sound improved!!
I prefer the brew made for Winston Churchill by the Danes in 1950, very classy
Nigel my fuel bill is similar to yours, only 3 bedrooms but LARGE, an old doctors house next to the soon to be demolished Blackburn Royal Hospital, central heating is great though I can lounge round the house in shorts and a t-shirt...when I was a lad we had a paraffin heater and a coal fire, also an outside toilet...great in winter, we had a metal rod in the toilet to break the ice
Nigel my fuel bill is similar to yours, only 3 bedrooms but LARGE, an old doctors house next to the soon to be demolished Blackburn Royal Hospital, central heating is great though I can lounge round the house in shorts and a t-shirt...when I was a lad we had a paraffin heater and a coal fire, also an outside toilet...great in winter, we had a metal rod in the toilet to break the ice
A lot of poor Aussie wines too, paid 50 1977 dollars for a 1970 Grange Hermitage that went down the sink. If I wasn't paying that's where a Henshke Hill of Grace would probably head these days.
I don't mind a Foster's Premium myself once in a great while.
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But the point is, Frank, yiou understand now why I'm in all this amp/preamp business just for fun.
I could easily manufacture on a samll scale the crap they sell commerially, but me being me, mine would cost around €500 in parts alone. If I made just 33% of profit, and adding the VAT at 20%, it would cost about €800. Who's going to buy it at almost 3 months' worth of average monthly inomes?
The REAL challenge would be to make something costing no more than €300 to make, and adding my 33% of profit and 20% of VAT, costing under €480, yet sounding better than anything else available at up to twice its price. That IS a tall order, but I think it is doable.
Obviously, copies of famous names excluded, even those like the Otala/Lohstroh amp, to which copyrights no longer apply.
I could easily manufacture on a samll scale the crap they sell commerially, but me being me, mine would cost around €500 in parts alone. If I made just 33% of profit, and adding the VAT at 20%, it would cost about €800. Who's going to buy it at almost 3 months' worth of average monthly inomes?
The REAL challenge would be to make something costing no more than €300 to make, and adding my 33% of profit and 20% of VAT, costing under €480, yet sounding better than anything else available at up to twice its price. That IS a tall order, but I think it is doable.
Obviously, copies of famous names excluded, even those like the Otala/Lohstroh amp, to which copyrights no longer apply.
Dejan if I were stinking rich I would buy you a nice house in Somerset to get away from it all. If I was that rich one for me also. Cider. I drink it all the time now. Your fault.
I am seriously considering Dorset at the Somerset end. My ex won't let me sell this house. Goodness knows why, she lives two hours away. Suits me fine as it's twice the house I would have living near Oxford if I had . In Dorset I can almost buy this house for half the price. Whatever I do it must have a good listening room. This house does. I found out this week neighbouring Hampshire has very low crime and excellent cancer care. It says it isn't trading a worse quality of life to move there. Cancer care is a marker.
I am seriously considering Dorset at the Somerset end. My ex won't let me sell this house. Goodness knows why, she lives two hours away. Suits me fine as it's twice the house I would have living near Oxford if I had . In Dorset I can almost buy this house for half the price. Whatever I do it must have a good listening room. This house does. I found out this week neighbouring Hampshire has very low crime and excellent cancer care. It says it isn't trading a worse quality of life to move there. Cancer care is a marker.
Well, if you were that stinking rich, I'd insist you buy two neighboring or nearby houses, so we don't have to lug prototypes a long way off. That's the only way I'd manage to swallow my pride and accept a gift I cannot return in kind. The temptation of having two loonies working togather is an offer I could not refuse.
First thing I'd do is to get myself a Border Collie. I've wanted one like forever, but living on the 8th floor of an apartment house is no place for a sheepdog.
First thing I'd do is to get myself a Border Collie. I've wanted one like forever, but living on the 8th floor of an apartment house is no place for a sheepdog.
Terry at Loricraft has one called Rosy. I take her for a walk sometimes. Very sensitive dogs and hyper intelligent. Must not be owned by nasty people as they will go mad. They need much love and lots of walking. Black and white Lassie.
You and I might work OK. I would simplify your stuff and you get me to be less lazy. We then could compete for who will build the most OTT PSU. I read the spec on one I did for someone. It's 50 Kg ! I didn't realize.
You and I might work OK. I would simplify your stuff and you get me to be less lazy. We then could compete for who will build the most OTT PSU. I read the spec on one I did for someone. It's 50 Kg ! I didn't realize.
We've had three at the golf course this year, one retired, one chasing the geese off the course, and one had to be sent back to the farm. She tried to heard the golfers into packs of 4.
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