Speaking of old school…

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I’ve recently gone (almost) completely old school. Out of frustration with the internet, and wanting the most simplistic way to play music. The closest I get is playing music files, via usb port, on my dac/streamer. I used to use an iPhone app to control that, but don’t even do that anymore. My streamer does have an internal pre, so I can remotely control the volume.

I’m 50% vinyl play anyway, so I have to get my ass up fairly frequently anyway.

“Call me a relic, call me what you will, say I’m old fashioned, say I’m over the hill…”

"On & On: Jose James Sings Badu" Universal Japan SHM-CD



A very interesting (Japan only) cd.

My Midnight Blue.



DSD download from HDTT

Great music and great sound.

"Creative Music Studio--Woodstock Festival Vol. 1" Douglas Records cd

This has to be great with Lee Konitz, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous, and Jack DeJohnette. And it IS. A very dynamic recording as well.

Recorded at Woodstock, NY: Sept 19, 1981.

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At the risk of hijacking Lon's thread I'm going to +1000 this. Networking at a mid-major research university was my day job for many years and either because or in spite of that I want nothing to do with it when it comes to playing music. Streaming music has a lot of advantages, but for me the downsides outweigh them. I do buy files that I download and play, and have been doing more of that over the last few years, but I'm not interested in putting in the time, effort and money to make streaming competitive with physical media or local files in sound quality. But, just like everything else, we all have different priorities and constraints and there is no right or wrong answer for everyone.

There has been a lot of discussion, and a lot of great information, about this exact topic in the Digital forum if you are interested.

I have rather different tastes than many and I found when I was researching some time ago a lot of what I want to listen to that I don't have is not available for streaming. Of course others' tastes are different as is the resulting availability. If I listened to a lot more classic rock and pop that would be different. Still I prefer to own music I love than rent it so . . .

For me streaming does NOT sound as good as discs and I don't have the money to make that not be so, and with the size of my collection I'm good at continuing with disc playback.

Right now
Grateful Dead "Blues For Allah" 50th Anniversary 3 cd set, disc 1 (the OG album).

This sounds exceptional. The Plangent Process is a great thing and this transfer and mastering is great!

+1 on all three of MM's listed points.

Still for sale. I have never heard a more analog sounding DAC. This has great synergy with Decware amps.

Three points to this post:
1. Congrats on the new family member, Lon!  Memphis is a lucky dog.
2. I am eternally grateful for all the music I discover through this forum. I gain much more than I could ever contribute.
3. It’s very rare that a posted album isn’t available for streaming in Qobuz.

I'm re-listening to this Burrell SHM-SACD as I haven't been able to give it or any music my real deep attention since our new dog entered our home. I am followed like a shadow, I have to be constantly interacting with him, he's obsessed with me. He won't fit with me in my listening chair (he's more than twice the size of Fiona the dachshund) and as a result I haven't spent much time at all listening. He's sleeping next to Lucinda now so I am upstairs and trying to get in a little listening.

I warmed up the system and this SHM-SACD sounds better than it did before. A little more like a Kevin Gray mastered release rather than the previous Blue Note SHM-SACD (which sounded really nice imo).

Kenny Burrell "Midnight Blue" Tower Records exclusive SHM-SACD

I do have a lot of 12" deep bookcases, and they are packed two rows deep and two high with jewelcases/digipaks, and many maybe most of the jewelcases are thin case doubles, so for example two Ellington cds are in one double jewelcase, two Albert Ayler cds are in one double jewelcase, two Carmen McRae cds are in one double cd jewelcase, etc.* (I buy tons of those two cd inserts). I have as many of these bookcases as my wife will allow in the house, which is not as many as I would like.

I also have a large climate controlled storage unit for discs, books, instruments. . . that has gotten very expensive and I have been "instructed" to empty it. . .that is hard for me but I have begun doing so. Will take a while though, especially as my wife doesn't like me to be away from home long. Sigh.

Over the years (and in married life) it certainly has become a problem. I wish I liked streaming/files etc. but I don't. And much of what I have and want is not easily available that way.

As for organization there is not that much. There are three labels I have sort of completely together (but not necessarily organized within the togetherness): Blue Note, Impulse, Bethlehem. I have most of my Miles Davis all together. The rest is sort of willy-nilly. My memory is very good, and I remember where things are for the most part, and I go through areas of the collection now and then to refresh memory.

*

and

Yeah. Long time, no see Dom

I do not have John Williams conducting the Saito Kenan Orchestra, but I do have his buddy, Seiji Ozawa, conducting it in his box of "German Masterworks." I was listening to Bach's b minor mass, which, like everything in the box, is majestically played and beautifully recorded.



On CD

I was going to say this box would be a great way to get a good chuck of the German Classics^tm in great recordings at a great price. But I just checked Amazon and it is now over 300 bucks...so there's that.

Lon,

How do you store your massive collection of music?
You must have giant shelving units full of CD's and Albums.

That then brings in the question of how you keep it all organized? How do you know where what you want to listen to is located?

Yes I have a fairly large collection, but everything is held on computers and a couple of backups. It really doesn't take up much space.
Now speakers are another story!

What a difference a few years make. Even without considering inflation from 2022. A lot of new IEMs, Hifiman prices dropping like a stone, forcing a lot of other manufacturers do follow suit. And also others making very similar sounding headphones from established companies (like Thieaudio and Meze). And real gems like the Verum 2 (I can’t believe it’s $425!) sound as good as headphones in the $2000-3000 range…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in the classical music thread.  For some reason I tend to go in spurts lately.  Tonight’s a vinyl night…and as I was  flipping through my collection…its impossible to pass over John Williams without playing him.  

It’s been some time, but I second the last post. Would it be possible to share the schematics abd parts lists?
Thanks!

When I saw Zeros…I got a bit concerned because I check this forum daily.  I’m glad that it was only out for a short amount of time.

I haven't listened to Janacek lately, which is a major oversite. So I spun up his fascinating string quartets.



16/44 FLAC download

These are modern, but not dissonant, and you can still hear the Czech lyricism through the modern harmony. And speaking of Czech, it seems a little provincial to say no one play Janacek like the Czechs, but it is pretty true. Esp. the Panocha Quartet, who are pretty great at everything they do.

MODEL NO. 3 - SE34I.6 (230V)

SOLD on 8/18/25

Thank you,
Very logic explanation
Regards
Thuan

Kenny Burrell "Midnight Blue" Blue Note Japan/Tower Records (exclusive) SHM-SACD

I had a pair of SE84UFO3 with all the mods for over four years, and now have had the SEWE300B for over two years.

I'm posting just to say that the SEWE300B is more/different than the UFO25 sound with more watts. To my ears the UFO25 sound is more analytical, and the SEWE300B a fuller, deeper sound. That's the best way to describe it. I've lived happily with both, and both allowed me to tailor the system to fantastic playback. But there's more to it than just power number difference. (I've had a fully modded CSP3 in use with both--the differences in texture and depth are even more pronounced when the SEWE300B is used with the preamp, but I found that better sound came without a preamp as the SEWE300B has an amazing "preamp" stage built in).

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I think the purpose is largely aesthetic. But technically what they do is show the plate current, aka the bias, on the power tubes. That is useful in two ways: one is generally the needles will be perfectly still, but as you start to approach clipping they will start to dance, in time with the music.

Also, while the absolute number on the dial isn't very important, if you see it go down it probably means your tubes are getting old and you should consider replacing them. But my (some what limited) experience is sound quality starts to diminish before the meter reading changes. Steve suggests every 6 months or so to swap out your current tubes with new ones and compare the sound. If the old ones still sound good than continue to play them. If the new one are better than thank the old ones for their service and leave the new ones in the amp. That makes a bunch of sense to me.

There are really no user adjustments possible, besides switching tubes, but if you see the meters go to zero, or get maxed out that means you've got a problem.

I have a CSP325 + SE84UFO25. I'm on the list for a Sarah 300B, but have started thinking more about the Torii MK5. My room is 30' x 15' x 7'6", with front side and ceiling absorption panels. I really enjoy the SET sound and thought the Sarah would be a step up from the SE84UFO25. Aside from more watts I'm beginning to think it might essentially be a lateral move with the Sarah. Not to mention the dreaded "hum" that some folks are talking about. My Klipsch Forte I speakers are pretty sensitive.  I'm thinking about the push-pull Torii for a few more db's and the ability to use some of my less efficient speakers. So for anyone that has heard both amps, could I get your opinion on the overall differences?

Cheers,
Skip

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I think fundamentally the problem was a bunch of files were missing. Files with the threads were obviously gone, and either the files with the data about the threads or the programs (scripts) that process the data were missing. When I tried to login or reset my password Wed. night I would get missing file messages.

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Indeed. Without going too far down the IT rabbit hole, there are a lot of places that think they are doing backups but never actually check to be sure they are really working. A lot of major IT outages over the years seem like they would have been fixed sooner with a better backup and recovery plan.

Hi all,
I'm wonder what the purpose of these display in miliampere?
I have one amp with needle point at 29 mA on both channel (in green zone 20 mA - 30 mA)
Other amp's needle point at 33mA (yellow zone 30 mA - 34 mA)

Both are figured as bridged monos, and volume seems balanced between L and R
Any user adjustment needed. Should I worry if needle point to red zone 34mA plus?
Thank you
Thuan

It was gone here too... but all fine now. Internet stuff...  Going back outside where I belong..... music tonight though~ all the best             Mike
image from last night

What is the manufacture date?

Wednesday Toppy posted a link to a French concert. I watched part of it at 3:04 eastern time that afternoon. When visiting the forum hours later it was noticed that Toppy's post was the last that was posted and stayed the last for many hours after that, which was very unusual for this forum. Then Lon posted in the usual manner and so forth.
Got me thinking that the link for the video might have a bug. Probably not. I dug a little deeper and noticed that most the views for each thread have been zeroed out as well as 4 topic contents erased.
Very weird! Maybe someone in the know might give an explanation. Regardless, it is comforting to know Steve got our back with backups

So weird. I had no interruption of service, all that was causing problems must have been resolved in between posts of mine, I never had to relog in. I was occupied most of Wednesday afternoon and evening with adopting this critter and getting him established and comfortable in the household and wasn't online then. I see now posts are missing.

I'm sure we'll eventually get a little info from the chief and chieftaness . . . Lord knows there was enough going on in the world Wednesday . . . glad all is functioning well again.

Yes, it looks like the site was restored from the Tuesday night backup. So everything after that is gone.

Well almost all back. It seems that the last 2 days worth of posts have vanished during the hack or whatever.

Thanks to whoever found the right switch to restore this great forum 99.99999~%

As my old boss, who had been working on computers since they were running on vacuum tubes, liked to say: computers are only human.

That was me Donnie! Now that thread is erased!

Got to love these computers!

Good seeing all is back as it was.

Here's what I saw. Weds. PM (California time) I couldn't connect to the message board as I usually did. But I could in a private browser and the site was clearly foobar, as we say in the biz. It said there were 0 logged in users, the most recent post was from back in August, a bunch of threads were missing, including all of them in the General Discussion section, and CAJames was an ex-user (so was Donnie). It looked like there was a file system failure, or a bunch of files got deleted by mistake, or maybe the site was hacked. But whatever, by yesterday morning logins were working again and Lon was posting about his new dog (congrats on Memphis Lon!) but I was still an ex-user (so was Donnie) and the threads were still missing. This morning it looks like things are restored from a backup and we're back to "normal."

So thanks Steve and whoever else rescued the site!

It was weird. I could see "most recent 50 posts" but nothing else.

If I tried logging in I was rejected on either my PC or my Apple phone.

This morning as I checked I saw a post that someone  posted about me and CAJames both being EX members, but now that is all erased.

Anyway, life has been returned to normal and the 10 times a day I swing through to check out what is going on is back!

I was able to log on but all the posts were wiped.  A Decware Forum apocalypse, if you will.

Thankfully, zen has been restored.

That's very weird--not my experience at all!

For the last two to three days I haven't been able to log on, I was just getting a rejection.

Also the whole forum seemed to be wiped clean.

At least now things look to be back to normal except it looks like the last few days didn't exist.

:D

9/9/25
As we heard tonight, while listening to the heaviest hard rock music we could find, it effortlessly keeps up.  With a 5U4G or 274B or really any of the rectifiers on the list, there is a time sag as well as a voltage/current sag tied to demand.  With the Dynagrid there is no detectable time sag.  It really seems to bring complicated and demanding music to life.  Incredible edge with no sharpness or dryness.  Impressive.

Lon wrote on 09/09/25 at 18:06:22:

I, on the other hand, am in my 60's.

I guess it boils down whether or not you feel that the tube regulation is worth the upgrade.  Only you can answer that for yourself.  I run a pair stereo Zen SE84C+ amps configured as monoblocks. They are fully upgraded with the 25th Anniversay mods, UFO transformers, and Miflex caps.  I absolutely love the sound I get out of them, but I have to admit…I who wish they had tube regulation at times.   If I didn’t need the 6 wpc due to my Err speakers requiring them as per Ziggy’s recommendation, I would have seriously considered the change.  

Hope this helps

This is quite simply one of the greatest records ever made. YMMV. The brass sections from the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago Symphonies, i.e. a bunch of the very best brass players on the planet, got together to jam on the antiphonal music of Gabrieli. As a bonus the sound, unlike most Columbia/CBS/Sony recordings from the 60s, is as spectacular as the music and the playing.



On CD.

I pretty much wore out my LP of this album, and if it is possible to wear out a CD, I'll wear this out too.

Simon Moullier "Inception" cd Fresh Sound cd



Bass – Luca Alemanno
Drums – Jongkuk Kim
Executive-Producer – Jordi Pujol
Liner Notes – Morgan Enos
Vibraphone, Producer – Simon Moullier

Recorded at Sear Sound Recording Studio, New York City, October 11 & 12, 2022

For anyone here who's been looking for one of these, just listed for sale at USAM:

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/650247938-decware-zstage/

That's a good record.

I like a grittier flute. My favorites are Yusef Lateef and Roland Kirk and Sam Most . . . .

I feel like "jazz flute" is somewhat controversial. A lot of people think it is lame (at best) but I love it. And Brasamba! is one of my favorites.



DSD download from HDTT

Having Clare Fisher and Joe Pass sitting in doesn't hurt at all. Neither does the excellent HDTT transfer.

"Legends of Acid Jazz--Rusty Bryant, Vol. 2" Prestige OJC cd



Originally released as Fire-Eater and Wildfire