Rockford

Did anyone see the rendition of Auld Lang Syne to close out the ABC NYE show? What an amazing and powerful voice. Video | Facebook so I Googled her and found her website and started listening to her album. Wow, such a clean and pure voice and almost effortless projection. JESS HITCHCOCK If you buy the album you get a Digital Download as well in Flac or MP3. Is on Spotify but not Qobuz.

Sure we are the minority - they would have done their homework and gathered how much an audience there would potentially be - before doing any announcements, yet they still went ahead with it and said 'yes it is coming, stay tuned'. So there must have been 'enough' of a potential customer base to make it worthwhile in their eyes.

Another year and another no show.

Had a dust cover made up by the very chill people at Australian Plastic Fabricators for $200, turned out really well.

Monster is a bit of an understatement, it is huge!!

OK now we have that sorted. Any recommendations?

Some mentions here... but it was more recent.

I can't remember I think it was a couple of things, Russian, and a perception they had some chemical in them? Trying to find mentions of it.

I looked, couldn't find anything. I read about everyone rolling their tubes etc. But every time I've gone looking all I ever find are about 2 retailers and for the most part all their stock is sold out. Namely https://www.thevalvestore.com.au/ and https://www.evatco.com.au/ So where are people getting their valves from? Was looking for maybe some TUNG-SOL 7581A for example. Ebay? Stores in the EU? I read somewhere on here people were complaining ones coming the US are being randomly seized by customs. Is there a list somewhere of Tube retailers everyone uses?

Is this related to it? He said in relation to my speakers... "They have a 3ohm impedance with a low dip of 1.75ohm at 400-600hz." "I can wind the output transformer to have a nominal 6 ohm output (my standard) and a 3 ohm output" In the manual he has 2-5 Ohm OK on one tap and 5-10 Ohm OK on the other.

Yep Jarrah.

I asked Earle if he could build me a new amp to replace my much loved Troubadour which I think was struggling with my Genesis 501's He replied... The Blurb from his Website Anyway, they arrived last week, his last build of the year. It is always a good day when TNT knock on the door and inform you they have a pallet to deliver... palletised, double boxed, and very well packed in a sturdy box, the smell of the god knows how many coats of varnish wafting out as I opened it up. Of course I made the mistake of bending over the opened box and trying to lift it out... umm no. Bend at the knees. After setting it up and plugging it in and settling in to play my favourite 'showpiece' music Mark Knopflers 5.15am from his Shangri-La album on SACD. My jaw literally dropped; I am like no way. He spoke of control, but this was stopping on a dime, it was so tight and controlled all other things in the system remaining the same. It was like a blast of NOS had gone through the speakers, and they are like 'ohhh yeah, give it to me baby' like they have been awakened from a slumber. Don't get me wrong, I used to think the old setup was pretty good but yeah, wow. The poise and power is just insane. I was getting so much more detail in songs that I'd listened to hundreds of times, like extra notes were now becoming more apparent as the scale moved up and down. Bono's warbles in With or Without you, seemed to pick up more steps. DSOTM Eclipse was a revelation. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, the dynamics are so controlled and effortless. The finish of the amp, and all the extras I was able to get to future proof and use in way I never could before. (remote, headphones, pre-outs) give me great scope to try some room correction which I'd always wanted to. When you look at the build photos, it truly is a work of art - I'm just sitting on my listening chair looking at it wistfully. Thank you Earle for what you do, I know if I'd bought something at this level from a commercial company it would be 2 times the price at least. Without any of the custom aspects and attention to detail. Some of his pics from the build process and some of mine in its final location.

Would a Weston Acoustics Topaz KT120 be OK? I will email Earle but I think he is on holidays at the moment.

Extra Info: If anyone has a set. Looking for at least 2M (ideally 8ft) and banana at both ends but can work with spades. Have always wanted to try them.

Not sure, checked on Tineye and they are not there. Is he allowing you to come and pick them up? If a scam, may insist that you pay beforehand, as they have another person interested, so if you want to 'secure' them you have to pay up front to show how serious you are. I dunno.

Photos all look very stockish and/or from overseas.

Anyone see the 18K resolution films they are showing Postcard from Earth Taken with a custom built camera by them. The movie is 500Tb in size! ‘Postcard From Earth’: Darren Aronofsky’s 18K Film Rocks The Sphere – Rolling Stone

Imagine someone like Pink Floyd coming up with something.

Supposed to be the best sounding space, which was one of the aims of creating it.

I wonder what will happen with all the gear they don't sell? I can't imagine the market for Focal Grand Utopia's is very large. So they will be sitting at basically half price until someone buys them? Meanwhile the new distributor will just have to wait until x + 1 customer comes along once A2A have sold all their x number of stock, but would quite rightly(?) expect the same price. So until the new model is released in every product line, they won't be shifting too much I dare say. So 3 years down the track those Grand Utopias are still gathering dust somewhere, they start just doing a reverse auction on them or something?

"Please bare with us" Doh... Might get arrested doing that.

Strange, most of the reviews when they were 2-3 times the price seem pretty favourable towards it. Focal Elegia review | What Hi-Fi? (whathifi.com) Review: Focal Elegia | The Master Switch Focal Elegia Review: Closed-Back Dynamic Headphones – Headphones.com

I grabbed some of the Elegia closed headphones, for $329 a pair I couldn't pass that up.

One Man’s Quest to Revive the Great American Vacuum Tube

Surely you could say that about any of the lossless services. If you listen to them on the train with cheap ear buds or whatever you probably won't get the full effect of it.