Kevin Bresnahan

Nothing fancy about my EE degree, it's just a regular old EE degree. However, my career has long swung to the RF side of EE (GHz stuff) so circuit design and analysis is a distant memory. I can bias up and test just about any RF circuit you put in front of me. But don't ask me to debug your amplifier's schematic. I'm not the right guy for that anymore. Ancient history for me. I think sidewinder is referring to caps from the great capacitor scandal from a while back. The story goes that the formula got messed up for the gunk that goes into the cheaper Aluminum caps. He may be right that this is still a problem for all amps. I just have trouble believing that Marantz would have used these cheap caps, especially in their Reference Series. Maybe they did, but if they truly used them in a "low stress" circuit (their words), they should be OK, as the ratings for most caps are specified under full load i.e. stressed to the max.

My Marantz PM-7005 is also hooked up to B&W 805s speakers too. We have a similar set up. I have difficulty believing that both tweeters failed simultaneously. FWIW, I have heard many blown tweeters and "gurgly" is not the sound I would ever use to describe what I heard. It is usually a high-pitched, almost painful buzz. The sound will break up and not be constant. I don't think it's your tweeters. BTW, if you do get the tweeters replaced, make sure to get the equivalent tweeter. B&W revised the N805 to the N805S right around the time you bought them. I think the tweeter is a little different on each of the models. I know the crossover is different. Maybe you could splurge and get a Diamond tweeter. ha ha ha... I don't think you could do that as the crossover probably isn't set up for that load. But it's worth thinking about.

Marantz's Reference Series is not likely to use cheapie Aluminum electrolytic capacitors. They brag about this amplifiers design and proprietary components in their literature. They even highlight their capacitors as being "stress free". See http://www.vintageshifi.com/repertoire-pdf/pdf/telecharge.php?pdf=Marantz-SA-15-S-1-Brochure.pdf "Custom-made components inside the SA-15S1 include new stress-free electrolyte capacitors and the Shottky diodes, which also feature in the rectifier circuitry. The audio circuitry uses high-grade electrolytic and film capacitors, to ensure the excellence you demand from Marantz products."

Their Reference Series is their top of the line. There is an Reference Series integrated amp with more power (PM-10), but it is still in the same series. http://us.marantz.com/us/Products/Pages/ProductListing.aspx?CatId=ReferenceSeries FWIW, I have a Marantz PM7005 integrated in use in one of my audio listening areas, actually the one I use most often, and it's been great. I don't think you need to pay the extra money to get into their Reference Series. The PM7005 or PM8005 are excellent amps.

This is not a mid-level Marantz integrated amp. This model is in their reference series. Larry - just for the heck of it, when this garbling sound is happening, press several of the front panel buttons to turn on and off the Tone settings, turn on & off the speakers, press the ATT button to mute and un-mute the amp and the ILL button to turn on & off the display light. Maybe you have a sticky switch? I'm hoping on of these will clean it up. Also, for the heck of it, are you using a power strip? Is anything else plugged into the outlet adding hash to the AC feed? These digital amps can do weird things if lots of noise gets onto the AC feed. Can you plug it into another outlet? Maybe a filtered outlet? BTW, how are the speakers connected - bare wire or bananas? If you have extra speaker wire around, try swapping that in. Some speaker wire oxidizes with age and eventually could get very resistive. This one is a long shot in my book.

This got posted recently: https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/irma/index.html I was able to zoom in on the house I rented in April and it looks to have weathered the storm pretty well. The pool looks filled with junk and dock is almost in said pool, but structurally, it looks like minimal damage.

The difference is that I knew the director of the nursing home. I gave the CDs to her personally and she told me that her residents were loving the music.

Many (all?) libraries are very picky about what they take. The several large batches of CDs I donated to my local library ended up being sold for 25-50 cents each at the library's big fundraising sale. They didn't keep any of them for their music shelves. Apparently, there is very little interest from their patrons in them having a large Jazz CD collection. Just an idea... I was recently given ~2,000 big band/Dixieland CDs after a co-worker of my wife inherited them from her grandfather. She heard that "Kevin likes Jazz". I didn't know what to do with them (they were not my style) so I donated them a local nursing home where they have apparently been enthusiastically well received.

I haven't played this LP in a while so I pulled it off the shelf tonight. Nice date. I have the Analogue Productions 33 rpm LP (Analogue Productions Revival Series - APR 3006), which is mastered beautifully. Highly recommended if you can find it.

It first made land in Florida at Cudjoe Key. For the last two April vacations, my family has spent a week at a beautiful house on Cudjoe Key. I have doubts that it's still there. It was right on the water.

My first concert was Kiss at the Springfield Civic Center in 1978 or 1979. It's a little hazy which one it was. I'm guessing January of 1978 because there were other concerts at that venue in 1978 that I'm almost positive I saw. I sat next to the stage so I got to see Simmons set up all the staged action. I saw him put the packet of blood in his mouth (how stupid was that?) and I saw him drink the flammable liquid that he used to shoot flames into the air (how much more stupid can you get?). Funniest thing was seeing him sprint back off stage to get the stuff out of his mouth after each performance. My first Jazz show was a tenor sax player who I've never heard of again (and can't remember his name) that I saw because he had Curtis Fuller in the band and I wanted to see Curtis. It would have been late in 1990 because it was right after Art Blakey died. I believe that the sax player was Curtis's student and I heard that he made a living playing the cruise lines afterward. I wonder if he still plays?

The picture I posted is from a review of the Imagine XBs: http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PBIMGXB It looks like the Audio Advisor reviewer used a stock photo from a different model.

I was at a show last night and the drummer took an extended solo. I leaned over and whispered to my friend Bob, "He's lucky Terumasa Hino isn't up there". We got a good laugh. It was an excellent drum solo BTW and it was well received.

It's a bootleg: https://www.discogs.com/John-Coltrane-Quartet-Creation/master/568328

I did a double take when I read that Hino is 74. I did not think he was that old.

I just got in a new LP as I finished up Herb Ellis. Now playing Paula Cole's new one: "Ballads"

I finally got my turntable going again after my move late last year. It's been a while. Now playing: Herb Ellis - Softly... But With That Feeling (Verve Japan).

Ahhh, here it is:

Are these Transition LPs even vinyl? Aren't they some kind of hard plastic? I think that's why the labels don't stick.

I have a Japanese copy as well. From what I've read, I wouldn't want an original. I've heard that the vinyl is noisy and the labels usually fall off.

I only just saw that Peter Leitch announced back in 2015 that he was retiring. I was wondering why I hadn't heard from him in a while. Then I read that he is 73... I had no idea that he was that old.

Yes, that's true. They're switching to black & white.

I hear Jet Blue is going to start flying routes in Europe on jets that are even more bare bones than the ones they fly here in the US.

My buddy Bob Festa takes pictures at most of the shows he attends. He took a bunch during Abercrombie's 2015 swing through the Cambridge MA Regattabar. Here are a couple from his Google+ page: