Sunday, August 21, 2016

'95 Nissan Altima

Our daily driver "Jill" (nickname inspired by the memory of my parents' first car, "Jack" a hybrid '41/'47 Chevy)...


...is a low mileage 90s surivor inherited from my cousin in NYC.


It survived the 240 mile trek but this rusty bit needed the attention of a body shop to pass MD state inspection. Soon after getting it titled and registered, the water pump and one of the electric fans seized, taking away the radiator. 

DIY

...so there's more budget left for folding bike parts, film, tubes, resistors, capacitors, etc. (toys) ;)


Got a brand new radiator and water pump locally, an original electric fan from the junkyard, wrenches and tools from Harbor Freight to get it back on the road, with help from my apprentice ;)

Chambersburg, PA
Canon 7s + Canon 35/2
Agfa APX100 in Rodinal

The car has taken us to the Baltimore/Washington, DC area, PA, NJ and back to NYC!

Monday, August 15, 2016

Octal EAR 834P phono preamp


During my visit to NYC earlier this summer, my buddy Ding loaned me his home-brewed octal version of the EAR 834P phono preamp using 3 x 6SL7 octal tubes. Powering the preamp is a General Radio 1201-B tube regulated power supply.


Ding is not into boutique parts. Instead, he used carbon film resistors, mylar coupling capacitors and electrolytic caps gathered from Hamfests and surplus stores. Proper grounding and parts placement ensured a very quiet phono stage.


Traditional tube phono stages like the classic Dyna PAS 3 and Marantz 7 employed active RIAA EQ networks inserted in the negative feedback loop from the final stage to the input stage. In the 834P, Tim de Paravicini used active RIAA EQ with a clever twist - the EQ network is fed from the cathode follower output back to the second stage only. IMO, the benefits of this topology are: a 1st stage unimpeded by negative feedback, low noise and low output impedance.

I've been enjoying this phono stage so much that I'm inspired to build my own version. Good job, Ding!

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Shippensburg Music Festival 2016


From 1999-2008, I spent three weeks of July making music with these wonderful musicians at the Luhrs Center. It was great to be back!


Vidcaps of rehearsals 

1st week
R. Strauss - Metamorphosen

2nd week
Schubert Symphony No. 9 - Finale

3rd week
Verdi - La Traviata

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Capital Audiofest 2016

 Here's my Vintage/DIY centric point of view of the July 8-10, 2016 event at the Hilton Hotel in Rockville, MD.

EMIA

Custom turntable and tonearm

2 x 300B amps per channel 
using high nickel content iron 
wound and designed by Dave Slagle

Bi-amped stacked QUAD ESLs

DejaVu Audio


Mint Garrard 301 + Ortofon tonearm + Koetsu Rosewood 
in a custom plinth


Custom tube preamp and amp by Aldo D'Urso using vintage Western Electric tubes, iron, paper in oil caps and carbon composition resistors.


Speaker system by Aldo D'Urso 
Altec 803A woofers, 60s vintage Japanese horns + Jensen RP302 super tweeters.

Aldo D'Urso and Vu Hoang

DC Audio DIY


Joe Roberts' Garrard 301 + Schick 12" tonearm
in a custom plinth

Joe Roberts' Altec 756B in 2.5 cubic foot sealed cabinets on retro mid-century modern hairpin legged stands. Highs are augmented by Fountek ribbon tweeters through paper in oil caps and transformer attenuators. Hey Joe, you need Altec 3000s tweets there instead ;)


Custom GM70 monoblock amplifiers with hefty Tamura output transformers by David McGown


David McGown (center)

DCAudioDIY set up

Roscoe Primrose 
Head honcho of DCAudioDIY Forum


Lots of LPs!

Yours truly with Herb Reichert and Joe Roberts ;)

Monday, July 11, 2016

Leica Store SoHo NYC


While strolling around SoHo NYC,  we stumbled upon this Leica store. This guy looked so familiar, I had an inkling he was the one who sold me my Leica M6 at Tamarkin waaay back in '96! I was right! Nice seeing you again, Craig!