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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 19:06:48 GMT
I remember you introducing me to Diana Krall - Temptation, great track! Yes, The Girl in The Other Room is a great album.
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 17:54:56 GMT
I saw Pat Metheny in Brighton (The Dome - I think) in 2003 a fantastic gig.
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 13:59:49 GMT
I went to see Andy Sheppard at The Electric Theatre in Guildford quite a few years ago. Very good player, but not really my cup o tea. Some years later he made an album called Accidental Tourist that was along the St Germain style of Jazz and much more my style.
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'ello
Jan 27, 2017 13:54:26 GMT
Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 13:54:26 GMT
Hi Paul hope your previous health probs are under control. Will I see you getting an ASBO?
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 13:44:25 GMT
I have been very lucky speaker wise and never had to spend silly money. I was made redundant in 2012 and became a p/t postman. At one address I saw a pair of speakers sitting in the rain outside a house. I enquired if I could have them, and was told that the person who could say yes or no was out. 24 hours later with constant rain I went to collect them. Really heavy, mid-range unit foams were gone and they were a bit battered. Got them home, re-foamed and smartened them up and they are really good for nothing.
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 13:27:00 GMT
I see , like mine, your listening room is quite narrow, I recently hung some thick curtains behind the speakers and screwed some carpet on the side walls , which produced stupidly good results. I'll find my thread for you. BTW I'm so impressed with the Lampizator sound done properly that I am about to upgrade my Lampizator P17s to the P24s. My P17s will be up for sale soon. I had thought about doing something like that with a large rug my son "donated" to me (basically I think he just wanted me to get rid of it). Took up a lot of room in the garage and so I stuck it outside where it's open to the elements. Better get it in and dry it off!
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 8:36:04 GMT
I have been into "Jazzy" music all my life. It started in the 70s with Jazz-Funk and Fusion. Jazz-Funk then morphed into Smooth Jazz which I followed for some years, but there was nothing really interesting about it and it didn't really move on and was derided by most as "elevator music".
Having a free Spotify account when it first started allowed me to spend hours trawling for something new. It is only recently that I realised that the stuff that I liked was dubbed Jazztronica, stuff like Nils Petter Molvaer, Buge Wesseltoft, Lars Dannilsson, Wolfgang Haffner and others. Not sure what Genre Hadouk Trio and Boozoo Bajou are but I like their stuff. I also found some of the stuff from Trilok Gurtu, Nitin Sawnhey listenable.
I was also into Reggae and Dub in the 70's, but again felt that they had a machine that they simply programmed to churn out the same sort of stuff which just became tedious. I like some of Bill Laswell's stuff and International Observer (founded by one of the original Thompson Twins!)
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Post by puffin on Jan 27, 2017 8:07:58 GMT
The Lampy's have a an extra unit sitting above the bass box run with a separate amplifier. They are OB GLL Imagio's which use Inductive Coupling Technology (a sort of dual concentric design - I think) I got them from an audio jumble and knew they would be put to use one day. There are no other speakers being used in that vid (although another pair can be seen) I probably didn't make it clear that I am currently using 2 pairs and will post a vid of this The "side panels" were a bit of an experiment with soundstaging. They are just leaning against the main baffles. The "black peaks" (good marketing tag that) are some 90 degree shaped old grilles that hang over the back of the mid-range units to soak up some of the rear output. I have been told that I am a bit mad (as in bonkers) and what you see may well confirm those opinions. The proof of the pudding is of course in the eating and most who have heard my, perhaps, unusual take on things have said they were impressed
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Post by puffin on Jan 26, 2017 21:13:13 GMT
I have heard large JBL's at shows. Do you mean the small ones?
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Post by puffin on Jan 26, 2017 19:39:11 GMT
I have (perhaps) an unusual take on the reproduction of recorded music, due probably to having always been mightily impressed with the visceral impact of club installs and the bass slam and depth they could generate. Home hifi in the 70's if you were poor was.....IMO....well..... pretty poor and playing the same records heard at the clubs was pitiful in comparison. Fast forward to about 10 years ago when I was still trying to recreate that sort of sound with a "proper" hifi system. I have hsd countless pairs of speakers and amps etc etc. I ended up getting a pair of very large good quality PA speakers (15" bass units) which IMO sounded pretty good, but were lacking in some areas. So I thought I would add another pair of speakers to use in tandem. This combination sounded pretty good. I am sure that most will throw up their hands in horror and say "that simply doesn't work" for a whole host of reasons. But it did for me. I moved the PA speakers on after a few years of on/off use and had other speakers in and out, but the thing that I continued to try was more than one pair in tandem, sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Anyone tried this? About 3 years ago I was able to buy some Lampizators P17's at a bargain price and as these had 15" bass units I thought these might be the ones for me. After trying very hard with them for nearly 2 years I was not really happy with their presentation. I was then gifted a prototype pair of EAR Primary Drive OB's. I had to get these to work properly, but I felt that these were more "me" than the Lampy's. However, they did a lot well, but not all. So...what did I do.......of course....paired then with another pair of speakers. I have some vids of the Lampy's (playing alone ) and hope to add one here. I will take a vid of my current rig, which in all probability will not sound too different, but as you will all know "I can hear the difference"
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'ello
Jan 26, 2017 19:08:14 GMT
Post by puffin on Jan 26, 2017 19:08:14 GMT
I thought I had better say "Hello" again as it is a few weeks! since I joined and had any meaningful input. I have registered my interest in attending ASBO and hope to meet some of you there. I can't seem to find a dedicated DIY thread, I assume it is bundled together with all audio/hifi matters.
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Post by puffin on Jan 23, 2017 10:35:08 GMT
I seem to remember meeting you at the house of Andrew Randle? some years ago. He used to have a web page called The Hifi Watcher which seems to have disappeared. I hadn't thought about bringing any kit, but i have lot of home built stuff Gainclones, Mosfet Amps, Pre-Amps, Dacs, Class D.......and on... I have a nice couple of LM3875 Gainclone Monoblocks that some might like to hear if they have never heard a chipamp in anger.
Rob.
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Post by puffin on Jan 23, 2017 8:11:14 GMT
Is there still room to attend this event?
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Post by puffin on Oct 28, 2014 18:52:37 GMT
No I don't buy the hifi magazines now. I was an avid HIFI + fan but when I discovered hifi forums about 4-5 years ago I have not bought a single one. Sometimes my wife will buy me the latest copy of HIFI + and put it in my stocking. The big difference between magazines and forums is, when I read magazines I tried to be interested in products that had very little relevance to me. With HIFI forums I can read exactly what interests me and only that, and there is a lot more of interest. Not only that but forums can aid the development of friendships, I must have been to 5 different homes in the last year or so from forum members hearing all sorts of good kit. Same for me. Mags are irrelevant to my hifi journey.
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Post by puffin on Oct 22, 2014 16:48:03 GMT
I have had a listen to the H/Phone amp on this........Mmmmm well it lasted all of 30 seconds. A 2bob C-Moy is streets ahead of this (IMO of course)Dull and uninteresting would be a compliment.
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Post by puffin on Oct 17, 2014 17:23:07 GMT
Well you are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.....aren't you . I have only fleetingly tried the HP out to check that a function of the unit was working. I have seen that others have rated it quite highly, so I will have to give it a listen.
Today I wired up the Analogue In sockets (XLR) - Digital out. I am pretty impressed by the A to D conversion.
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Post by puffin on Oct 17, 2014 8:22:34 GMT
"When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross. I shoot first and ask questions later" (Harry Callahan - Dirty Harry)
" Uh uh. I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?"........(man on floor) "I gots to know"..... (Callahan presses the trigger............. Click......... - no bullets left) (man on floor) "you son of a bitch!" (Dirty Harry)
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Post by puffin on Oct 16, 2014 19:13:46 GMT
Yes John it would be good to see you again.
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Post by puffin on Oct 16, 2014 17:55:58 GMT
I recently bought an ART Balanced to unbalanced gadget (a 1:1 transformer inside) and was impressed by what it did. The reason I got it was because Both my old Dacmagic and the more recent incarnation have balanced outputs and this is said to be a better interface than good old single ended. In the past I have used a DIY balanced to unbalanced module that I built years ago from a kit purchased from White Noise a small home based DIY industry run by a Dr White. Over the years the bits I used on these had been plundered for other DIY projects and they were bereft of most of what was required to make them work!. The ART was about £20squid delivered which seemed a bit of a bargain to me. Nice case and well put together and did not make my any squarks, bangs or smoke . In fact IMO it improved the musical experience.
This got me thinking about Pro style equipment that has a million bells and whistles and does balanced to unbalanced and unbalanced to balanced and juggles 15 balls in the air whilst whistling Colonel Bogey! Searching around I came across the Behringer Ultramatch Pro.
www.behringer.com/assets/SRC2496_M_EN.pdf
All that you need to know is in the link above, and in the full manual that you have to download as well.
I Googled around for sellers and found the cheapest at £115 (some were as high as £265) from Woodbrass in France. Delivery was said to be 5 days....it was here in 3. I am still finding out how a lot of it works, but what I have used is very impressive (IMO of course) my favourite being the internal AKM Dac. I initially used it as an Upsampler through the more recent Dacmagic. It sounded better than the DM on it's own. You can also select "Dither" and bit rates as well as the sampling rate. I was using 96kHz and 20bit. However the internal Dac is, to me, in another league
The analogue outs are XLR sockets, good job that over the years I have amassed a shed load of leads and had some I could use. After many years the White Noise balanced to unbalanced modules were resurrected and all the bits missing replaced. This was needed to use the analogue outs in order to hear the internal AKM Dac. Well it well worth the effort. I don't know about you but over the 100 years or so I have been messing with this stuff I have often stumbled on a sound that says "my god - this is it, suddenly all my music makes sense - even the "difficult" stuff that I used to turn off". I have reached that place many times. only to destroy it in an instant when attempting to better it. Here I was again.....all the planets aligned.....everything in it's right and proper place.....a magical experience. Now you will probably be asking yourself if I he has had a little too much of the fermented grape, or is he just barking mad. The answer is both, but to differing degrees But I suspect a lot of you will know where I am coming from, you know that Eureka moment.
What does £115 buy you these days?....I recently spent more than that on a meal for 4 and what did I have to show for it the next day? It was not until I had bought the Ultramatch that I stumbled on a page dedicated to wringing the most out of it. However this means cannibalising it to such a degree that it will not fit in the smart slim case that it comes in. If you want to know how to make it better have a look at the link below. I will not be taking a soldering iron to it. I have been there, done that and burnt the T-Shirt. I am quite happy with it the way Behringer intended......and.... No...I have no connection whatsoever with the manufacturer.
lampizator.eu/lampizator/TRANSPORT/behringer/Behringer.html
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Post by puffin on Oct 16, 2014 17:07:20 GMT
Ich bin ein bin liner Alexei Sayle Genius!
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