One and a half

Iso for car paint? By the time the dilution factor is worked out, I'll stick with the Meguiars. Iso is well.suited for metal connectors, although DEOXIT D5 is tough to beat.

There are waxes that remove oxidation, like Meguiars Ultimate polish. Odd name, since that compound actively breaks down the top old polishes down to the original paint.

First time hearing about the brand, but long time silver enthusiast for cables. One major question, what would be the opening dimension of the spades? The amps have M8, 5/16” speaker posts hence the question. Speakers are M6 or bananas, so no problems at that end.

Given up on studio, when arriving from work away about 2-3 weeks , play stalls and there's an update to install. Lumin and DAC had to be restarted, takes half hour messing about to listen to anything. Since Qobuz is installed, the search is mainly online, can't find, but have albums local to play, just too hard. The recently added tab from Origin was missing, a feature greatly missed. In all, too difficult, removed the subscription, and also canned Qobuz. It could never work out what I liked, and suggested Indie, classical, pop, which I only played for sampling of less than 10s and heard enough. The Qobuz SQ was not comparable to local files, lacked imaging and detail, quite a distance behind. Now listening to Origin, very happy again.

Just an update, the ifi neo stream is in NAA mode from HQplayer. The content is redbook only as the 'radio' service of some 4000 tracks on repeat. Hqplayer resides on the music server, outputs NAA to the Neo via CAT5e. Operation is faultless, using ifi mini xlr cable to standard xlr into Accuphase E450 amp in the office, KEF LS50 speakers. The SQ is better than JRMC, using the standard upsampling of 384khz, as I gave up fighting with HQplayer just playing at Red book rates which it didn't want to. Shrug.

Looking at the close up photo on the Aliexpress site for the 902 cable, the cores are clearly Red, Black and green. The plug above is wired wrong, the earth and neutral colours are transposed. Colours with the exception of the Green (should be green/yellow) is OK for EU, AU/NZ that I know of, but unsuitable for USA.

With the rearrangement of the music room shifting regularly, some Furutech Ag power cables were either too short or not enough of them. For Silver plated copper, they didn't sound too bad, compared to Oyaide Tunami they were just a little better than stock cables. The Tunami is 10 AWG cable, the Furutech 12 AWG, the loads are power amps, so the 10AWG is fine, but at USD120/ft and 15' run, the Tumai is beyond my budget now. To suit 230V system, any Nema connector and cable isn't going to work, and Aussie connectors are few and far between of good quality, decided years ago to standardise on Euro connectors being of the right voltage and a wide choice of cables and connectors. Now to find a cable that's 10AWG and won't break the bank. Amazon.de have quite a few Chinese cables on offer for good prices, at least more reputable than e-bay, which want the money first, then ship, extending delivery to several months.... One cable manufacturer from China, Monosaudio at least has a website and unlike many cable manufacturers put their name on the cable, and by looks of the connectors, make OEM for other manufacturers. The offered power cable the 902R is a three core design, with each core screened and an overall screen with foil. I did have a look at other braided copper designs, however the coverage wasn't 100%, still allows a field to sneak in, which is not good. For EUR107, the 902 1m, considering the size of wire is 'reasonable'. That's with MwSt, some 17%+ tax, which comes off export, that more or less pays for the freight form Germany. The cable and the connector have a good quality about them, certainly no below spec. IR at 500V and sailed through that with no issues. Removed the IEC connector to have a closer look, was worried about the collar unscrewing without a tool and exposing conductors, but this wasn't the case. The colour coding was a little strange, Red for the Line (no issue) stranded white 16 AWGg for neutral (OK for USA), and black for ground, which is not OK, the PE should be green/yellow. The AAA battery is shown to compare the size of the connector and cable only. This cable is 2m. A better photo of the structure Earth connection shown, black sleeving, maybe they wired it wrong? Earths cannot be multiconductor, but can be multi stranded. The shields are connected at the male end of the cable, which is fine. There are direction arrows on the cable, but since the connectors determine the source and load, it's kind of superfluus, however in a busy panel where mutliple cables converge, having the direction is very handy to identify cables. The connector material looks like a varnished copper, could be heat or cold treated to give it that colour, certainly very even, not spotty at all. In use with bi-amps, I made the box with the dual Furutech outlets. Internal wiring is 10AWG SPC. The Monosaudio 902R have been in the system for a few weeks now, today received the 5m 902R and immediately the bass took off, the top end rounded off nicely, with no splash. Look, it's not night and day, but definitely better than the Furutech Ag and pleasant to listen to. Depth much the same as before, I'd say the image stability has firmed, would put this down to the screening. The factory is quite approachable, the 5m cable was a special at USD325, I think if they invest in an e-commerce software, sales would be a lot easier, but now rely on distributorships, mainly on the connector side. I was dubious about the Chinese quality and finish, however the Monosodio cables deliver great sound quality for the value they deliver, certainly would have to spend a great deal more for a small amount of SQ improvement. Highly recommended!

The amount of detail that is often missing is due to AC power quality affecting USB transmissions. It's a bit of experimentation as to which AC source is better, usually it's the 'lower impedance' afforded by dedicated lines. I think Berkeley are trying to optimise the SQ out of the Alpha, by assuming (with some justification) that connecting the Alpha to an analogue component system is better than an AC supply with a lot of digital gear emitting trash back to the line, such as music servers. switches, routers, typical IT gear.

Good one ! I have two dates of birth the real one for govt departments, the other is the origin of Unix 1/1/1970.

This is all rather disturbing, so how to fight back? What software tools are out there to: - Identify the source of 'call home' - How to block those calls - Prevent the calls from re-occuring

If I need to power down the network that feeds the ER and ending up at the Lumin, there's a ritual of what to boot up first as far as networking is concerned. Eventually, there's music again, takes about 30 mins to figure out what component is not happy, it's usually the ER though. Once power is on the ER, it just works until today. 5 days continuously on after a power shutdown, music was playing, then stopped dead. Lumin U1 advised to 'check network connection'. Noted the A side network indicators were still working, so the network is OK. Moved the B cable to the A side and the Lumin is connected again. Moved the B cable back to the B side, and 'check network connection'. Replaced ER with a Netgear GS108 with the same PSU for the ER 12V 1.5A ex Lumin U1. Works fine (actually the SQ is not so bad) Setup a Lenovo PC wired connection to B side on the workbench with a 5A 12V SMPS and went through several reboots and updates, the B side is fine, network indicator is OK on the B side. Disconnected the test setup, and reinstalled ER to system. Works again as if nothing happened. Is the ER on the fritz, it was shipped March 16, 2021, getting old?

Norah's 9th album is a below average fidelity, the mix is missing something, compressed to the moon. DR's attached for the Redbook and 96. When previewing on Qobuz, thought, it was the music is overloaded, distorted, the downloads are not much better. 01- All This Time_log.txt 01- All This Time_log.txt

From the beginning, where - o - where is the EXE for Windows? These are the files for download and mean diddly squat. Or is there some secret code that translates a pdf to a downloaded exe? Please don't make it hard for the computer and programming illiterates. From the manual: x86...where is x64? The manual screen shots are from MacOS, there's no reference for m1, m2, m3 processors either. Looks like vaporware. Oh please use a spell checker, Sinc = Sync. No uPNP or network transmission, AirPlay is not networking protocol, and you have to pay for this? A reverse engineered HQPlayer, mm, not tonight Josephine.

Yes, the internal power supply is 6V with only a very small tolerance of overvoltage, like 100mV (IIRC). The overvoltage solutions with linear power supplies (off the shelf types from Acopian) for example were too slow, and let through a higher voltage, and would fry one chip in particular in milliseconds. That's why the SMPS with a tight voltage regulation is used in the MC3+USB, as well as space restrictions.

Even the best electrolytic capacitors can dry out, and after 30 years, oh. It's a big ask of them to retain their values. Even with slow reforming process, if the capacitor is dry like a resistor, it can cause all sorts of irregular voltages on the driver circuits, and that can destroy transistors. The slow reform would have to compare the service manual data against actual values and back off if anything goes wrong. I'd be against wholesale changing of caps for these units, materials like PCB can become brittle, then there's nothing to hang components off any more. I'd send them back to FM Acoustics for them to repair FOC as bold as brass. These units have historic significance, if a company loses its heritage (like HP, Apple) you lose the connection of what you made the company it is today.