You missed a helluva party

If you weren't here that is. We had a blast!

Having a great dealer here in town is great for lots of reasons, but having Barney Miller's is just perfect. Between Barney Miller's and THIEL last night, we threw one great party. For more than 3 hours last night, we imbibed, listed to lots of music, talked about lots of gear, toured the plant, learned a thing or 2 from Jim, sold some speakers, caught up with folks we haven't seen in a while. Then Lana, Jeremy, Jeff, Ms. Chris, and I rocked the CS2.4SEs to 11 with some good grungy 90's before we closed down just before 10. If you weren't here, I'm really sorry we missed you.

A BIG BIG thank you to all of you who came and especially those of you who bought speakers! Barney, Tony, Tim, Doug, Aaron, Donny, Becky, I had a blast hanging out with you all. We should do it again sometime. Lana, Tammi, Denise, Ken, Jim, Dawn, Ron, Rob Dave, Teresa, You people are amazing. Thanks not only for spending 2 days with us setting up but for making it so much fun last night.

We rocked the PowerPoints on the ceiling, CS3.7s and CS2.4SEs on the floor. After the demo program, we took requests from the audience - Ray Charles and Take 6, Jacintha, Local band Bo Allen, and at some point after that the listening room descended into chaos, but in a good way.

Hope y'all had as much fun as we did! Thanks again to all!

-Gary
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70574&id=18538673578

Open Letter To Amplifier Manufacturers

Dear aforementioned,

I really only have one topic I would like to cover today and one thing to say about the topic. The topic is heatsinks, and OUCH!

Last night amongst a room full of eager guests I reached behind an amp to power it on. After fumbling for the switch for a moment - it's not an amp I have a complete tactile memory of yet - my hand felt wet. For a brief moment I thought someone had spilled their libations on our audio rack and it was dripping down onto my hand. Pulling back expecting to see the lovely Amber tone of and ale, I find instead the deep crimson of my own blood and plenty of it. Take a moment to note that absent from my remarks are mentions of feeling my hand getting cut bone deep.

Though your amplifiers are marvels of modern engineering and on the bleeding edge (ha ha) of industrial artistry, there are better places to showcase your remarkably precise machining capabilities than the sharp edges of a heat sink. Upon inspection of my wound this morning, I can safely say that it was not a rough edge that inspired me to write, but a sharp and true edge.

To those amplifier designers who have already heard cries and yelps from earlier victims and responded in kind, please know that I know who you are. The unwritten inverse of this blog is gleeful thanks for your compassion. To the rest of you, I say

OUCH!!

Sincerely,

Gary "nine-fingers" Dayton

Grounds for Divorce

I've had quite a variety of top shelf gear at home courtesy of listening room loan, and most recently, I've had zöet at home so I can do some real-world testing and debugging. Dear Wife has enjoyed zöet very much due in large part to it's first-in-class ease of use.

But zöet went to THIEL last week so we could wrap up the multi-zone testing. So it's been quiet at home. And who wants a quiet home? How lame.

Dear Wife expressed some interest in having a stereo set back up in the living room, but I'm off to yet another trade show (EHX in FL if you wanna meet me for a beer), so I didn't have time to set the CS3.7s et. al. back up.

So, she got the scour-the-house-for-parts version of a stereo, and man, it sounds like shit. Well, it's not really that bad, it's just dreadfully boring. It's the Franzia of audio systems - won't make you wretch, but you won't want to pour another glass.

To add insult to injury, when I tried to hook up the Krell CD player, the amp went nuts. Must be some kind of funny grounding problem. The 12 watt op-amp based 1 input integrated amp gets its power from a switch-mode DC power supply that looks suspiciously like the one that came with my external hard drive. So, the only input possible is something with no earth ground reference (I have no idea why).

Imagine going from a zöet system fed by a multitude of high-end sources one day to the following: MP3 player as source into said integrated amp into $200 per pair name-withheld-to-protect-the-innocent bookshelf speakers.

Geez, she's gonna be pissed. I hope I'm on the plane before she actually gets to hear what it sounds like. Woof!

-Gary