beancounter

I always use the Telarc recording of the Mahler 1, St Louis/Slatkin for auditioning gear. Yeah, there is better now, but I have used it for years and years and know it well. And back in the day there wasn't much better available on CD.

The living room sofa. It keeps moving, centered under the windows - and in front of my left speaker. My wife swears she isn't moving it.

I was just a kid at a summer "camp" program at a university, but I was on the internet before AlGore was even in Congress.

I saw the late Johnny Griffin in Chicago shortly before his death. After a particularly hot tune, he shouted "No Kenny G - NO ANY G"

M&M's are a FANTASTIC audio tweak. A bowl of them placed on the other side of the room keeps little fingers busy, away from the stereo. Not my kids, I don't have to deal with them later when they're all sugared up, their parents do.

Now, if I could only have a drill press that wouldn't let me put the wrong size (too big) hole in my chassis. Particularly the last hole.

I'm a dumpter-diving, cheap audio hobbyist. If I can make it, I do. But don't have the knowledge for a ground-up PC build. I tweak old PC's a bit for audio, add/swap memory and cards, try to 'optimize' the system. Casualties? Many. My favorite failure was a tube crossover I named "the humming bastard"

Well, I guess I'm not following exactly where you're going with this thread. Nevermind

OK, I'll annoy everybody with the details DIY Amps - push-pull 6B4G (octal 6.3v filament 2A3); two stage, 5842/417A driver, transformer coupled. Fixed bias. Tube rectification (5R4GYB), choke input LCLC power supply. Hashimoto output iron from a Sansui 1000A receiver. Separate heater transformer for the 5842. DIY speakers - cabinets: reinforced Acousti-Craft 4.5cuft "hi-fi furniture" circa 1962. JBL 136a woofers, 2420 drivers on Edgar "salad bowl" tractrix horns, sitting on top of cabinets with 076 "cat eye" ring radiators. Modified 3131A crossover, outside of cabinet. And I have the matching console. It's how I was able to get large horn speakers into the living room.

Whew! Glad I drive a 2008 Town & Country (affectionately known at home as "the garbage scow"). TEAC UD-503 JRiver/PC DIY amps (tubes) DIY speakers (JBL, Edgar horns)

Switching supplies can be fine - if properly implemented. This amp is a sweet spot for it - not line level, so grunge the supply might add isn't amplified later, and the power requirements are modest enough to make good filtering pretty easy. Horses for courses.

No surprise. If you can live with low SPL and LF extension, itty bitty EL84 amps can sound glorious with proper speakers. Well done, they're pretty close to a good 45 amp (the horror!). Good sound is available at nearly every budget. It's all about compromises, and which ones you are willing to make.

Young pets and hi-fi can be an adventure. Years ago, my daughter's puppy chewed up the open frame output transformers on a DIY SE 45 tube amp. It was out my system, on the floor in the spare room where we kept him while we were gone. When I came home, the puppy was carrying around a #45 tube in his mouth, looking for a place to "bury" it. I always joke that if the amp had been turned on, we would have had a "blown woofer"

via a marketer's keyboard

Neighbor is a 'vette guy, his oldest graduated form high school and they had a party Saturday. My front yard had a half-dozen Stingrays parked in it. Two were convertibles and one a 427. My own little informal 'vette show.