Neumann DST with adapter

Musings - Peter Pan

A genius...

... also nicknamed: Fried Eggs:-)))

Light Harmonic's Geek Out - poor boy Bakoon/Satri?

3 watts or better yet... 3.000 Class A (mighty) milliwatts good enough for our >110db sensitivity drivers? A compact, cheap choice for multiamping, don't you?

Intriguing... a Bakoon/Satri clone for peanuts?

Sacramento, California October 29, 2013- Light Harmonic, maker of state-of-the-art digital audio products, is proud to introduce “Geek Pulse” through a campaign on crowdfunding site Indiegogo.com . “Geek Pulse” is a desktop DAC and amplifier that connects to a computer, music server or other digital device to form the basis of a high-quality compact music system. 



Light Harmonic recently confounded expectations of the audiophile world by utilizing technology developed for their $31,000 DaVinci Dual DAC in the ‘Geek Out’ portable DAC/ headphone amp launched on Kickstarter.com. The campaign set records by reaching its $28,000 funding goal in 10 1/2 hours, with a final tally of $303,000 from 2,146 backers. ‘Geek Out’ will sell through mainstream retail outlets for an MSRP of $299, starting in January, 2014; the strong response to “Geek Out” prompted Light Harmonic to establish a division devoted solely to mass-market products: LH Labs. “The ‘Geek Out’ campaign proved the demand for no-frills, no-jargon high-performance digital audio products that regular people can use and enjoy”, said Gavin Fish, Light Harmonic’s VP of Sales. “ ‘Geek Out’ showed that the general public understands the benefits of clearer sound, and a lot of our backers asked us for a desktop device with more power, more inputs, and more outputs. So---here it is!” 

“Geek Pulse” provides superb sound quality from a wide range of high-resolution formats, in an easy-to-use plug-and-play device. “Pulse‘s DAC natively decodes PCM files up to 32-bit/384kHz, as well as native decoding of DSD64 and DSD128 files, and features the Patent-Pending 3L buffer introduced by Light Harmonic in Da Vinci DAC. 

The amplifier is pure Class-A, utilizing a super-quiet DC power supply to produce 3,000 milliwatts of clean power, enough to drive even the most insane headphones, as well as quality desktop speakers. 


Connectivity is class-leading: inputs include 1-USB 2.0, 1-Toslink, and 2-S/PDIF RCAs; outputs are a 1/4’ headphone jack on the front, and a pair of gold-plated RCA line-out jacks on the back. 

“We were so happy that people liked ‘Geek Out’,” said Larry Ho, CEO of Light Harmonic. “Our backers said they wanted a desktop unit, and so we are happy to give it to them with ‘Pulse’. We will have even bigger surprises in this next year.” 

“We expect our backers will help us to make ‘Pulse’ even better than it already is,” said Fish. “And it’s already as good as anything being made today.” The Indiegogo campaign for “Geek Pulse” went live at 12:00 AM, PST on Tuesday, October 29th and runs through December 20th, 2013. 

Since its inception in 2008, Indiegogo has raised millions of dollars for thousands of projects. Initially geared to the independent film industry, the site expanded in 2009 to include all industries and types of fundraising projects. 

“Our last campaign showed us that as smart as we think we are, our backers are smarter,” said Fish. “We can’t wait to see what they teach us during the launch of ‘Geek Pulse’.” 

Suggested Retail Price, “Geek Pulse”: $499.00 

Availability: April, 2014

Decca FFSS Mk 2 stereo and FFSS Green mono and SME adapter

A TRULY superb find... in N.O.S. glorious beauty.

Ready to go Paratracer?!?!



Here below, also a gorgeous FFSS "Green" mono cartridge.

Adam Falckenhagen's genius

I love this music... I got aware of this seldom heard and read composer (1697-1754) thanking my beloved copy of Anthony Bailes' EMI Reflexe's discs.

In my strong opinion, his melodies and singing quality of his music are second to none, maybe more haunting than Bach himself, in the very same S.L. Weiss' vein and greatness.

This lute music is so joyful and complex, yet so straight to the heart and soul...

I recently got a disk by Alberto Crugnola playing a Martin Hopfman's (from Leipzig - 1690) 13-strings copy, made by Giuseppe Tumiati in Milan, back in 1997.

Recorded in a lively, beautiful sounding church, S. Giorgio's, in Pisa, Italy, on July 2003.

Alberto's playing is very, very nice and the great merit of this CD is that the whole Lautensonaten Opus # 1 - made of  six sonatas - is here presented.

I strongly suggest everyone in love with lute music and its timeless sound to search for and find this elusive disk... you won't regret.

Klangfilm Bionor

While making some order in the thousands pixes mess in my Mac, I found these cool pixies I found years ago and stored in my hard-disk:  a superb Klangfilm Bionor baffle pair for cinema, using top KL driver and the mythical 405 40 cm speaker.

What a beauty... maybe industrial beauty, bur still it!

Ocean Tales - The Rubber Ducks' Journey

Thousands of rubber ducks to land on British shores after 15 year journey

By BEN CLERKIN

Last updated at 22:00 27 June 2007

They were toys destined only to bob up and down in nothing bigger than a child's bath - but so far they have floated halfway around the world.

The armada of 29,000 plastic yellow ducks, blue turtles and green frogs broke free from a cargo ship 15 years ago.

Since then they have travelled 17,000 miles, floating over the site where the Titanic sank, landing in Hawaii and even spending years frozen in an Arctic ice pack.

And now they are heading straight for Britain. At some point this summer they are expected to be spotted on beaches in South-West England.

While the ducks are undoubtedly a loss to the bath-time fun of thousands of children, their adventures at sea have proved an innvaluable aid to science.

The toys have helped researchers to chart the great ocean currents because when they are spotted bobbing on the waves they are much more likely to be reported to the authorities than the floats which scientists normally use.

And because the toys are made of durable plastic and are sealed watertight, they have been able to survive years adrift at the mercy of the elements.

Boxes of the bathtime toys - made in China for the U.S. firm The First Years Inc - were washed overboard in the eastern Pacific Ocean one stormy January night in 1992 and broke open.

In the intervening time an oceanographer, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, has devoted his retirement to tracking the little yellow ducks and their friends over 17,000 miles, and it is he who has predicted that this summer they will land in the

West of England. Mr Ebbesmeyer said: 'We're getting reports of ducks being washed up on America's eastern seaboard.

"It is now inevitable that they will get caught up in the Atlantic currents and will turn up on English beaches.

"Cornwall and the South-West will probably get the first wave of them."

Curtis Ebbesmeyer

Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been tracking the floating plastic ducks around the world's oceans

Mr Ebbesmeyer said the toys will be easy for British beachboardcombers to spot because they have largely faded to white and have the words "The First Years" stamped upon them.

George Bush Snr was still US President when the toys from The First Years Inc. were made in China, packed into a container and put on a ship for the US.

But after falling overboard, the sea water corroded the card-packaging and the toys floated free. They circled the northern Pacific once before being washed up on the Alaskan shore, then all down the West coast of Canada and the US.

Mr Ebbesmeyer saw immediately how valuable the little toys would be to scientific research of the great ocean currents, the engine of the planet's entire climate.

He correctly predicted what many thought was impossible - that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic.

It proved true years later and in 2003, the first "Friendly Floatees" were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada.

So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR:

10 JANUARY 1992: Somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean nearly 29,000 First Years bath toys, including bright yellow rubber ducks, are spilled from a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean.

16 NOVEMBER 1992: Caught in the Subpolar Gyre (counter-clockwise ocean current in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Siberia), the ducks take 10 months to begin landing on the shores of Alaska.

EARLY 1995: The ducks take three years to circle around. East from the drop site to Alaska, then west and south to Japan before turning back north and east passing the original drop site and again landing in North America. Some ducks are even found In Hawaii. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) worked out that the ducks travel approximately 50 per pent faster than the water in the current.

1995 - 2000: Some intrepid ducks escape the Subpolar Gyre and head North, through the Bering Straight and into the frozen waters of the Arctic. Frozen into the ice the ducks travel slowly across the pole, moving ever eastward.

2000: Ducks begin reaching the North Atlantic where they begin to thaw and move Southward. Soon ducks are sighted bobbing in the waves from Maine to Massachusetts.

2001: Ducks are tracked in the area where the Titanic sank.

JULY TO DECEMBER 2003: The First Years company offers a $100 savings bond reward for the recovery of wayward ducks from the 1992 spill. To be valid ducks must be sent to the company and must be found in New England, Canada or Iceland. Britain is told to prepare for an invasion of the wayward ducks as well.

2003: A lawyer called Sonali Naik was on holiday in the Hebrides in north-west Scotland when she found a faded green frog on the beach marked with the magic words 'The First Years'. Unaware of the significance of her find she left it on the beach. It was only when she was chatting to other guests at her hotel that she realised what she had seen.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-464768/Thousands-rubber-ducks-land-British-shores-15-year-journey.html#ixzz2iRQpBoV1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook


Thanking Ben Clerkin for his article.

Tortuga LDR1 Passive preamplifier

Using a cool contactless potentiometer... after my recent engagement with two sought-after passive, transformers-based preamps - i.e. Fidelity Research AS-1 and Luxman AT-3000's, both very musical and almost impossible to find, here maybe is an handy third millenium alternative.

Reportedly, transparency in spades at an affordable price-tag!

The Holy Grail - Neumann DST

... as elusive as a four-leaves clover and more difficult to find in nice conditions with jewel-box and original papers than a diamond on a beach...

I found it thanking my dear friend Roberto and his pard "Eagle Eye" Pierre's timely suggestion and Paolo, the previous owner, who gladly sold it to me for a nice price... with a plus of empathy a go-go.

I was looking for this cartridge since a looooong time and finding it at only 20 km from home was as surprising as the find in itself.

Here it is the old dinosaur... larger than life, weighting 40 grams and built like a algid tank with utmost care and precision, VTF is a worrying 7-8 grams, yet the 25cu diameter highly-polished conical diamond will greatly ease the vinyl grooves and their life-span... and it's still singing like a young nightingale despite its age: a staggering 53 years old pup!

Welcome home, signorina:-)

After getting the EMT/SME adapter I ordered in Japan, I'll use it with The Peak arm... or will undust my EMT 997 "Banana"... will see.


.............

Like my friend Kazumasa-san wrote to me today, after reading my Blog:

"Hi Stefano san,

What a coincidence!
Last Saturday, I visited one of my friend to compare and enjoy sounds by four Neumann DSTs!
All DSTs played very fantastic sounds, sharp and vital.
Our conclusion was: black DST-62 was quite good and white DST was EXTREMELY good!

You got really good cartridge. I would like to have it some day."


While I sincerely wished my Japanese friend to find his personal white Neumann DST,  I agree... the black  DST-62 I recently auditioned - only few weeks before purchasing the white DST - was slightly, yet audibly, less airy and zesty.

Strange enough... Saturday was, in Japan and Italy, as well... Neumann DST's Day.

Always on the matter, here are some related pixes from another Japanese friend owning a later,  higher compliance and (slightly) lighter (at 30 grams) black Neumann DST-62, here showed stand-alone and mounted on his EMT 927st and EMT 997 "Banana"arm.

A Neumann V-264 transformer, the older bro of classic BV-33, also a single Mu-metal can with two transformers... made by Haufe as per Neumann's specs: the best of the best!

Lovely phono-porn, don't you?