It was buddhist New Year here last week. Loud shirts are compulsory attire (think Christmas jumper) and shops are full of them at the moment. Some nice patterns available this year.
To my utter flabbergastedness, my middle-of-the-road $170 phono cartridge is an absolute smash hit. A few hours' research (and a bit of luck) has paid off; this cart appears to be an excellent match for my tonearm.
Every single thing I used to hate about vinyl - mistracking, inner groove ugliness, even surface noise - has been drastically reduced to the point where I can actually enjoy nearly all of the same records that used to make me cringe. I am delighted to discover that ~95% of my LPs are in wonderful condition - they've just been waiting for something to track them properly!
No, I won't be denouncing digital or joining the Church of Fremer any time soon. But I do have a certain amount of music on vinyl that's hard to find in any format these days, and it's certainly nice to hear it at all - especially sounding like this! Plus, it's just fun to be messing with these old records again after all these years. Quite a trip down Memory Lane.
Anyway, to the topic: Of course several recent purchases have had to do with vinyl accessories. Latest is something called an Onzow Zerodust stylus cleaner. It's a little thing about the size of a matchbox, with a blob of soft polymer in the center. You just remove the dust cover with its handy built-in magnifier, and plop your stylus gently down into the soft material, which then grabs any loose junk right off the tip.
The stuff is transparent, so you can see each little blob of crap suspended in the gel. Apparently it's washable too, although i haven't tried that yet. The first time I used it I exclaimed, "SCIENCE!!" like the old dude in the Thomas Dolby video. Seems to work really well.
Every single thing I used to hate about vinyl - mistracking, inner groove ugliness, even surface noise - has been drastically reduced to the point where I can actually enjoy nearly all of the same records that used to make me cringe. I am delighted to discover that ~95% of my LPs are in wonderful condition - they've just been waiting for something to track them properly!
No, I won't be denouncing digital or joining the Church of Fremer any time soon. But I do have a certain amount of music on vinyl that's hard to find in any format these days, and it's certainly nice to hear it at all - especially sounding like this! Plus, it's just fun to be messing with these old records again after all these years. Quite a trip down Memory Lane.
Anyway, to the topic: Of course several recent purchases have had to do with vinyl accessories. Latest is something called an Onzow Zerodust stylus cleaner. It's a little thing about the size of a matchbox, with a blob of soft polymer in the center. You just remove the dust cover with its handy built-in magnifier, and plop your stylus gently down into the soft material, which then grabs any loose junk right off the tip.
The stuff is transparent, so you can see each little blob of crap suspended in the gel. Apparently it's washable too, although i haven't tried that yet. The first time I used it I exclaimed, "SCIENCE!!" like the old dude in the Thomas Dolby video. Seems to work really well.
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I built my speakers why wood was cheap .... (Got a pair small ones that will be cast i concrete).
I help my son to buy a book mscanner from UK (it should have been packed better - hope it's working), but the son whining as it was without the power adapter, so I had to buy him one of these
.
AS I needed vodka for my making of liqueurs, I ordered 3 bottles from Spain (I think) but took the opportunity to order:
Ratafia Bosch
Limoncello di Capri
Pacharan Berezko Premium
Absinthe Tunel Verde Cuadros
El Afilador Licor de Café
Picon Biere
Pisco Artesanos del Cochiguaz
La Pabordessa Ratafia
Amaro del Capo Vecchio
My brother always keep a bottle of Pacharan in the fridge and I love Limoncello and Amaro (Amaro is to Jägermeister what a brand new Tesla S is to worn down Ford Edsel).
The other liquors are wild guesses.
I help my son to buy a book mscanner from UK (it should have been packed better - hope it's working), but the son whining as it was without the power adapter, so I had to buy him one of these
.AS I needed vodka for my making of liqueurs, I ordered 3 bottles from Spain (I think) but took the opportunity to order:
Ratafia Bosch
Limoncello di Capri
Pacharan Berezko Premium
Absinthe Tunel Verde Cuadros
El Afilador Licor de Café
Picon Biere
Pisco Artesanos del Cochiguaz
La Pabordessa Ratafia
Amaro del Capo Vecchio
My brother always keep a bottle of Pacharan in the fridge and I love Limoncello and Amaro (Amaro is to Jägermeister what a brand new Tesla S is to worn down Ford Edsel
).The other liquors are wild guesses.
I usually get ply at HD and get them to do the cuts for me on the panel saw but now there's a lockdown in Ontario so I can only buy a full sheet and have it delivered, which is virtually worthless to me. I want to design a pair of 4" speakers (ok many parallel 4") but it's pointless right now
Bought some more PC boards from JLC a couple weeks back.
DHL is back to not delivering here again. My last PCB order went from China to Pittsburgh, via DHL. Then DHL chose to drop it in the US mail. It is a 70 mile drive from their facility to my door, so if they don't have another delivery near here, they don't bring it. They got here today, which was their expected delivery day.
DHL is back to not delivering here again. My last PCB order went from China to Pittsburgh, via DHL. Then DHL chose to drop it in the US mail. It is a 70 mile drive from their facility to my door, so if they don't have another delivery near here, they don't bring it. They got here today, which was their expected delivery day.
At least JLC is pretty quick to make them.
I did an order from Pad-2-Pad, thinking I'd try giving my money to American workers, and my order didn't get shipped for about a month. JLC usually ships within three or four days and costs a quarter as much.
I normally try to support smaller and more local companies, but not when I'm paying drastically more for worse service.
Same.
People next door have a table saw,
With a motor as big as any small car 4 cylinder engine.
Outside in the backyard.
Owner seemed really uncomfortable,
as I was about to ask,
Could we build some things.
So I just let it go ....
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My next speaker cabinet build will be from a large chunk of pine dropped off a few months ago. Hoping to have a pair of open baffle enclosures from one chunk of wood. Guessing this would cost about $150 with todays market prices.
Here is an example of something built using wood from the tree cutters.
Here is an example of something built using wood from the tree cutters.
Tubelab has bought boards from the same supplier in the US for 15 years. They were not cheap and the prices rose significantly over that time. In order to get boards at a fair price I had to order 50 or 100 at a time with a 20 working day turn time. Any change, even one to fix a problem with their process resulted in a $100 NRE charge. That was OK until the screw ups started. Wrong boards, bad boards, and finally no boards. Something had to change. Almost every US vendor said that my boards were too big for their standard process, and needed special treatment which resulted in "special" prices. As a last ditch effort, I ordered boards from China.
Even with the DHL / USPS dance I get boards from JLC in two weeks, VS 4 to 5 weeks from the people in Chicago. NRE is $4 VS $100. The QTY / price curve is not nearly as steep, so I can order 20 or so at a time, and the cost of a delivered board is less than half the cost of a US made board.
What did I TRY, unsuccessfully to buy today, and over the last few weeks.....semiconductors and other parts for my music synth project. Want some ARM CPU's, pay now for a November delivery date......24/96 codec chips? I did find 16 of the automotive spec parts in stock at Mouser for nearly twice what I paid in my last order, so I ordered 3 of them several days ago. No shipment confirmation yet, and their stock level has not changed. Maybe I'll get parts, maybe I won't. PJRC shipped the LCD displays. Three other orders from three different companies are all on back order.
I guess if they want to force business to China, they are doing a fine job.
I have had to order PCBs from China for years now unless I need a day turnaround. That runs $750 or so. Give China two weeks or less and I have the same PCBs for about $100 delivered.
I don't even look at North American board houses anymore.
I have had to order PCBs from China for years now unless I need a day turnaround. That runs $750 or so. Give China two weeks or less and I have the same PCBs for about $100 delivered.
I don't even look at North American board houses anymore.