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Author Topic: Straight from the Ham Fest to ePay  (Read 27504 times)
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #50 on: March 31, 2011, 11:55:34 AM »

They were talking about Denny's girls.

It's tough to top the Radio Tart. She's always there for ya.

I think we need to start a pool on what gear Carl will haul home and for how much. The pack that's there early roaming around can note the gear, price, and even add time of sale to keep it interesting. Then when Carl arrives later, someone can shadow him. It would have to be someone in pretty good shape as he's pretty quick for an old codger. I bet 'JJ could follow 5 steps behind and he'd never know it.  Wink

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K1JJ
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« Reply #51 on: March 31, 2011, 12:00:56 PM »

Set me up with a Sat nite date with the Radio Tart and you've got a deal!   Wink

T
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« Reply #52 on: March 31, 2011, 12:59:28 PM »

They were talking about Denny's girls.

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Jeez, and Todd, Johnny, etc bitch about me coming home with cheap deals.

Better read again Steve, I was replying to Dons "steal".

Im actually gonna be real frugal this time Todd, just looking for a few components but if another $50 SX-28 comes along I just may bite Cool
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #53 on: March 31, 2011, 02:58:23 PM »

Hey, you're the guy that brought up Denny's girls!   Grin
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WA1GFZ
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« Reply #54 on: March 31, 2011, 03:03:06 PM »

Never seen the Tart but I did see the red tail yesterday on a lamp post along Rt. 20.
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W2WDX
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« Reply #55 on: April 08, 2011, 07:17:40 PM »


Hey John, on your website you show a DX100.  Whats that mystery knob just above the CW-Phone mode switch for ?  Added feature ?
 Huh

That was mod done by a former owner. Took me while to figure that one out. It was a "marker" button for zero beating.

That was a nice DX-100. My problem with this business is my hording instinct is very difficult to overcome sometimes. I get done with an item and I want to keep it for myself, but alas, the bills keep coming!

I want to comment on tubes and pricing. The audiophools have really exaggerated the market, it's true. But consider the perception. You have a radio you bought eon's ago and you paid $100 bucks for. You want to replace the 12AX7 in the audio chain and if you don't have one your stuck paying a fortune. You will see the tube being sold for 25% of what the radio is worth to you. Now look at the audiophool. These guys spend astronomical bucks for their gear. A pre-amp easily and commonly costs $25,000+ these days. The Phool wants to try vintage tubes, cause he heard they increase his "spacial soundstage" by some infinitesimal amount, but he is compelled. The tubes cost him much less than 1% of the cost of the item he's putting a pair into. It's a matter of relative perception. To this guy, tubes are dirt cheap even at $250 a pair for 12AX7's.

Mind you, there are two types of audioophools, status buyers (the "I own a half a million dollar system, aren't I cool" type) and the "critical listener" who think they are pursuing ultimate musical fidelity. The manufacturers overprice their products to suit both types. Basically they price gouge more than any other industry I have ever seen. It's almost amoral. Case in point:

I was involved in this industry for a while (a between jobs job), and got a dose of the hype and hyperbole I was asked to belch out daily. So I understand the trap all of these critical listener types have fallen into. They are buying snake oil. An acquaintance of mine is one of these unfortunate victims. He has a system (that sounds just wonderful BTW), but his cabling cost him about 10 times what BOTH of my ham stations cost me in total. I'm talking about $40,000 in wire. This guys has drank the Kool-aid so to speak. He has a pair of speaker cables a 10' pair he paid over $6,000 for. When I went to his house to install a new cartridge onto his Oracle Delphi turntable, I checked out these cables. Basically, they were nothing more than a 8 conductor 20AWG control cable. The 8 conductors were split into a + & - (4x4), soldered into spade lugs. The entire package was then "dressed" in a foam tube, cloth outer sleeve and covered with a fine fiberglass mesh, custom heat shrink and fancy connector covers. I pulled back the sleeve to read the code on the rubber jacket of the original cable to discover it was Belden 83612 Multi-Conductor - Audio, Control and Instrumentation Cable. At retail (Allied Elec) this cable costs about $10/ft. I also priced out the retail cost of all the "dressing materials" used which totaled another $30. So to make these cables at retail pricing would cost about $250/pair. So figure if the items were bought at wholesale it would cost about $120+ labor to manufacture. Figure you sell them to your dealers for about $3500, and you see what I mean about gouging. Of course they are marketed as "OFC" and other ethereal terms spewing its musicality.

So, I bought some  rubber SOW 4 conductor 10 gauge, and made a ten foot pair and dressed them up just like the pair he has. I used a midnight blue mesh over a blood red cloth covering (it looked "mean"), put on bigger beefier spades. I knew the higher gauge would offer better damping factor at those lengths so I knew the cables would have slightly tighter bass response. This way my audiophool acquaintance would hear a change. I told him I was about to market my own brand of cables I have been testing " ... at my lab and have been working on these for 4 years" blah blah blah. I told him I needed a beta tester I could trust to evaluate them. The cables cost me about $100 in total.

So I went over and after bringing a laptop that had a copy of Smart FFT Room Analysis software, used in the Pro Audio world. I looked cool and complicated and I knew he has never seen it or heard of it or even knew what is does. I connected the two ends of each cable to some adapters and connected it to my audio interface and got an FFT display running off the noise. I told him some line about testing for the "magnetic flux variables" and twisted the cables about and looked at the display and looked at it critically, frowning and going, "hmm," while rubbing my chin. I then twisted the cables again and said, "AH HA .. perfect". I hooked the cables up to his system and listened a bit. I then told him told him the cables are already "burned in at the factory, so you won't hear a change over time". I left these faux HI-End cables with him for a week and called him to ask how they sounded. He first asked me how much are they. I told him, "well ... we think they will sell for about $13,999 retail but I would sell them to him for dealer cost at $8,000". I went to his house and he had the CASH already there when I arrived. He was raving about how great they sounded and that they are a "breakthrough product".

I said, "Oh ... really?" and suddenly pulled a box cutter out my pocket and with much panicking on his part, violently cut the cables fancy coverings off and showed him the cheap SOW. I took him over to his stove and showed him it was same cable used on his stove, and that it was just wearing make-up and a pretty dress. He was completely confused. I told him what his other cables actually were and that he should not listen this crap from these unscrupulous manufacturers. Cable is cable, not magic. I told him I would fix up the cable so it looked good again, and I gave them to him as a gift. He uses them to this day. Fortunately he has not bought any Hi-End cables since. I felt like I deprogrammed a cult member or just gave an addict friend an intervention.

Now this not to say that all expensive audio isn't worth it. Turntables require very exacting mechanical requirements and are expensive to make properly (most aren't). Consider the microscopic movements of the needle and the wiggles in the record grove, some measured in thousands of mils. Also consider the effects of the Newtonian laws of physics in terms of vector forces within the grove/needle interface and any external forces that are both infinitesimally small in value (equal and opposite and all that.) To make a turntable that can alleviate these external forces from adding to or canceling the minuscule vector forces within the record grove and needle's point of contact, the mechanical requirements are exacting. The benefits, when the table is designed & manufactured correctly, are very measurable and audible to anyone. So to build an excellent turntable can be expensive, just from simple mechanics alone. In general though, in the audio world this situation is the exception. Spending $10k on a turntable that is a machinists wet dream I can see, but $25k on a CD Player? NOT! Most things are way overpriced and over hyped and legions flock to drink the Kool-aid from their particular chosen Jim Jones of audio.

So now when I see him we talk about music; not audiophoolery.

So, I sell expensive 12AX7's (Telefunken, Mullard) to audiophools and I also sell used 12ax7 tubes that measure as new very cheap for the normal minded.

John
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K1JJ
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« Reply #56 on: April 08, 2011, 08:00:01 PM »

You're not kidding, John.

Here's a single 12AX7 bidding at $355 on eBay -  with 8 bids:


http://cgi.ebay.com/TELEFUNKEN-ECC803S-12AX7-Vaccum-tube-ONE-TUBE-/120707702874?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item1c1abd605a

T
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Use an "AM Courtesy Filter" to limit transmit audio bandwidth  +-4.5 KHz, +-6.0 KHz or +-8.0 KHz when needed.  Easily done in DSP.

Wise Words : "I'm as old as I've ever been... and I'm as young as I'll ever be."

There's nothing like an old dog.
WD8BIL
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« Reply #57 on: April 08, 2011, 08:32:22 PM »

$355.00 and reserve NOT met............. Insane!
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