bresna

I was walking down the hall of my office the other day, when I did a double-take. A younger guy (~24) walking towards me had on a "Cornbread" tee shirt. I said, "Hey, I like your tee shirt. Who is your favorite player on it?" He responded that he's never heard it. He was walking by a Uniqlo store in Boston and saw that they were having a clearance sale and he thought this shirt looked cool. BTW - the Small shirt fit him fine. I told him I had the music on my external hard drive if he wanted to hear it but he said it was on Spotify and planned to listen to it later. He told me he likes Jazz and recommended Pharoah Sanders' latest, which he described as an amalgam of Jazz & electronic music. I still haven't heard that one ("Promises").

MLB protects their trademarks much more actively than a company like Blue Note.

I was always more of a Mr. Peabody fan than Mr. Wizard. Mr. Peabody was a scientist. Mr. Wizard was a... wizard.

When a CD is made with more than 74 minutes of audio on it, the pit spacing rules need to be ignored. Basically, the lands and pits are closer together, and due to the wavelength of the laser, it becomes more difficult to read. Here's a cartoon that shows what the digital data looks like (I think this is exaggerated for simplicity): That 1.6 µm spacing is the "redbook standard" spacing that enables the laser to properly read each "track" of 1's & 0's. CDs hold about 700 MB of data in a 120 mm (4.75 inch) CD. So how does a DVD hold so much more than that? Or a BluRay? As most know, a single-layer DVD-R's can store up to 4.7 GB. That's almost 7 times as much data. That's because the DVD pit spacing standard is .74 µm. This data is read back by a different wavelength laser. CD lasers operate at 780 nm. DVD lasers operate at 650 nm (Blue Ray lasers are only 405 nm). Smaller wavelength means smaller illumination area which allows for tighter spacing. Laser wavelength comparison: CD vs. DVD pit spacing comparison: If someone wanted, they could make a CD player that used a DVD or BluRay laser and fit a lot more music on this 120 mm disc. However, that would need to be done by creating a new "standard" playback format (and player). Could be done, but very doubtful. I suppose being able to get a 7 CD Mosaic box set on 1 single disc would be nice, but not many people want or need that much music on one disc.

Yesterday, I picked up a few things from the newly-reopened Bull Moose Music in Portsmouth, NH. LPs Paul Desmond - Summertime (A&M/CTI) Paul Desmond - Bridge Over Troubled Water (A&M). Bought this on an All Music Guide recommendation. It's good - not great - and I only thought one track was "eh" ("America"). Duke Ellington - Meets Coleman Hawkins (Impulse!/Analogue Productions). This is the recent reissue. CDs Al Cohn/Zoot Sims - From A To Z - And Beyond (RCA) Stan Getz - The Song Is You (Laserlight Digital). This one was bought after the discussions here. It is pretty good stuff.

B.J. Jansen - Common Ground (RoninJazz). I was lucky to see this band perform the music from this CD live (at Scullers I think?). Damn, I'm gonna miss Ralph Peterson. I was so lucky to live near Boston, where Ralph taught, so he was often called in to back singles playing in town. It got to the point where I'd see anyone who had Ralph in the drum chair.

Those original Plugged Nickel covers are my every day life at work! Do a Google image search for "IC die bonds". Here's one where they etched away the mold (with foaming Nitric Acid) to see why the die is no longer working: I work with "bonding diagrams" all the time. In fact, I'm getting some die built up in our Wilmington prototype lab right now. I also create little needles to touch down on all of those pads before those wires get attached. I have to test some of these die up 90 GHz. Like this:

Lou Donaldson - Blues Walk (Blue Note/Disc Union). I ordered this from a Japanese seller after the word came out that the recent reissue in the Classic Vinyl series is cut too hot. I paid too much for this, but it's my favorite Donaldson date and I didn't have another version on vinyl. This sounds pretty great.

Charles Lloyd - Chapel

Charles Lloyd - Chapel (Blue Note). Kinda mellow for Lloyd. I got the vinyl and of course, there's stitching on the first track "Blood Count". When you're listening to a quiet track and you hear what sounds like a fart, it is not enjoyable. I don't know why I ever got back into vinyl.

If someone has a clean LP, send it my way and I'll do a needle-drop of it for them. I have had pretty good success in the past.

Arnett Cobb/Jimmy Heath/Joe Henderson - Tenor Tribute Vol. 2 (Soul Note)

Watching Star Trek Discovery on Paramount+. I'd held off on subscribing to this channel for many years but I recently hit a spell where I haven't been finding much to watch so I figured I'd give it a try.

Sorry - I am an engineer. I sometimes write wordy posts. If this is TLDR, I won't mind if you skip it. For the past 4 or 5 years, I've been using an old HP laptop running Linux Ubuntu with an external hard drive that has my music library (in VBR mp3 format) on it with playback via the GMusicPlayer app. While I do like this setup, it is rather inconvenient. I have to boot up the PC, turn on my TV, switch to the HDMI input to bring up the PC desktop, grab the wireless keyboard & mouse, make sure the laptop is set to output the audio via the line out (not via HDMI) and then I click through my library to find music to play. To make matters worse, my daughter's rescue dog is fascinated by the mouse moving across the screen, so she whines and barks the whole time the TV is on. Lately, I've been intrigued by the new(er) Raspberry PI 4 "mini PC" (RPI for short) for use as a digital music streamer. Looking into it, I can use this mini PC without any DAC, as my Marantz PM-7005 integrated amp has a USB input for it's built-in DAC. It even comes with an Ethernet port and WiFi built-in. It really is a mini PC. I ordered an RPI 4 card (4GB version) for $68.91: a Fliirc case (best thermal case out there) for $15.95 A generic 5.1 V, 3 A USB-C power supply with built-in on/off switch ($9.99) And then, just in case, I ordered a mini HDMI to HDMI cable so that if I have to, I can use this with my TV. Maybe even just to make set-up a little easier. It was $11.99. My music is stored on a 1 TB Samsung T7 SSD external hard drive. It's one of 3 that I use. I have 2 others as backups for my backups. I have to have backups with so much music on there. I cannot lose this library as it would take years to recreate. I am planning to run the RPI 4 with a Moode Audio operating system and control it using my Android (Samsung Galaxy S7) phone to access & play my music. I already flashed the Moode Audio operating system to a Micro SD card I had in my pile of memory cards. I may eventually switch over to have it boot from an external SSD hard drive due to longevity concerns with micro SD cards. I'm going to run a USB cable to my DAC input on my Marantz so no DAC card needed for the RPI. If I needed a DAC, I'd look at either a HiFi Berry card or a Allo Boss card. My expectation is that I'll be able to turn on this RPI mini-PC, turn on my Marantz amp, set it to the external DAC input, open the app on my phone and be playing music in seconds (with no dog barking in the background). Fingers will be crossed. BTW - if someone wants a more "turn key" RPI media streamer, this (rather ugly IMO) Allo Boss2 player is supposed to sound great and comes ready to go: BTW II - if you stream audio, this setup works well for that too. In fact, more people use this set-to to stream music from places like Spotify, Qubuz & Tidal than from an external hard drive like I will be doing. As I said, it has hardwired or wireless internet connections. If this works, I am planning to build another for my office at work. The company I work has employed software that encrypts all external media and this encryption software corrupts my music files (Digital Guardian is shit software).

My daughter uses the Hanes Beefy Tees for the ones she wants to last. When she makes a tee for a one-time outing, she buys a batch of cheapies from the dollar store.

The Volumio app on my iPhone is slow as hell. I was about to give up and move back to Moode but then I decided to try the web-based GUI. Holy smokes, is this better!! Faster, more info there and it actually responds. I may stick with this and just use my tablet to control the music playback rather than my phone but it's nice to know it's there if I need it. Web UI: I've also learned that I have 3372 Artists from 5027 albums playing on 46500 tracks for 4218 hours, 28 minutes & 43 seconds.

Etsy is basically an online craft fair. If you're gone to and bought things at craft fairs, there are some great craftsmen & women there, but there are also some that are just in it to make a buck. A tide clock I bought at a craft fair was great. A watch I bought for my mom fell apart in less than a year. I've bought many items from several Etsy sellers over the years and the quality ranges from awesome to not-so-good depending on the seller. My daughters have bought tee shirts and scarves from various Etsy sellers with the same results. So I am not saying that this seller is selling the bad stuff, just that you need to be aware of the chance that he/she might sell you a poorly-made tee shirt and that you might have no one to complain to if you get a dud. BTW - my oldest daughter is a kindergarten teacher so she has bought several tools to make her own tee shirts, including a high end (commercial grade) iron-on machine, and making a good tee like this is not easy. One of the most important things is starting with a good "blank". If she uses the thin ones in the dollar store, they last for a handful of washings. If she uses heavyweight tees, they last a lot longer. I have no idea if the Bella + Canvas tee shirt that this seller uses is a good one or not, nor how it fits. Hopefully they're better-sized than Uniqlo's. What kind of album title is "Blues and the Abscess Tooth"?

Just be aware that these Etsy sellers are just making an iron-on sticker themselves and putting them onto whatever shirt they have on hand. I am not saying that being unlicensed = bad quality. I'm saying unlicensed = unknown quality. You could buy these tee shirts from the Etsy seller and find out that the iron-on decal peels off after one washing. Also, because many (all?) of these Etsy sellers are selling unlicensed product, they often get shut down, so returns are often non-existent.

I figured it out - the Marantz PM-7005 has an “Analog Mode” button that I enabled years ago. Once I switched that off, the Marantz DAC showed up in the playback options. This sounds surprisingly good. Time to build another for my work office. Too bad they’ve gotten so expensive since I started this thread.

It's been over a year, but I'm finally getting around to hooking my little Raspberry Pi 4 player to my Marantz PM7005 using a USB cable and I can't get it to play no matter what output DAC I choose.Of course, the correct DAC (Cirrus Logic CS4398) is not listed at all.

The VMP vinyl version looks pretty wild. I managed to pick one of these up.

I ordered Charles Lloyd's latest releases as a box set on vinyl from Blue Note. I got the FEDEX shipping notice for the first LP last week, saying that it would be delivered today (6/29). So I check the tracking page today and see that it's coming to York, ME with a "Scheduled delivery date - 6/29/2022 by end of day". Then I glanced over at the detailed tracking info and see "OUT FOR DELIVERY - SOMERSET TWP, PA 6/29/2022 12:11". Um... what?? I'm guessing it's still in transit. But since it's been in transit since 6/24 in this heat, I imagine that it's going to be warped.

Playing needle-drops I made of Pete Townshend's two 10-inch EPs - "Quadrophenia Demos Vol. 1 & 2". There are days when I prefer these demo versions to the released ones.

Well, I was wrong. Kevin Gray is still cutting records too hot. The latest casualty is Lou Donaldson's "Blue Walk", issued as part of Blue Note's Classic Vinyl Series. I am very glad that I stopped buying these records on release. I had this in my Amazon cart and held off waiting for reviews. The reviews are in - Everyone is saying that the congas distort badly on the track "Play Ray". Saved me $23.

I've mentioned this here before, but Gadd & Cuber's last date together, "Live at Voce" is really good. Of course, it helps that they had Joey D on organ.