White J-Bass

Here's me playing with Diatribe back in 1990; that's a Mexican J-Bass with some modifications: a LeoQuann BadAss II bridge, Schaller tuners, chrome pot knobs, and the vintage chrome pickup cover. It was nearly identical to this one:


That's the bass I played in the Diatribe days with the modifications described above. I remember that the tuners and pickups were Christmas presents from Dad & Marti--their pals owned a music store in Canton.

The photo above (a video still from a performance on the local cable channel) also shows my rig from the time: a Peavey MegaBass 400w bi-amped head; MESA/Boogie 1x15 cabinet; Hartke 2x10 cabinet. That Boogie cab was the best sounding bass box ever! I built an exact replica of it and gigged with that for a while, too. But this rig was great.

NAD 310 Integrated Amp

There's another NAD 310 Integrated Amp up for grabs on eBay; like mine, this one is in mint condition. Let's see how much this one goes for.

If you want a great amp for a quiet space, this is your ticket! I love this thing.

SR

Didn't Get Much Done

...on the thing I was supposed to be writing. Maybe I've lost the knack for working at night. Nah.

More fun to goof off with wires and stuff. The dog is getting better at going to the bathroom outside. That's a good thing. The cat seems less pissed off, too.

I watched about 1/2 of Control--but I watched The Making of Control, which was cool. When I saw this movie at the Maple Theatres when it came out, I was the only one in the audience!

Those kids did a great job.

Larry Invites Me To Facebook

And I say NO for the moment, but check it out:

Writing something for work tonight and listening to English Settlement; depending on when you catch me, I often say this was my favorite record as a teenager. Some say Skylarking is XTC's best, but I think this one is it.

Oh, and Tropic Thunder is a way stupid movie.

Bookshelf Speakers

... are meant to be heard on bookshelves. For years, years, years, years, years my main speakers have been Polk Audio Monitor 4s--bookshelf speakers. I used the a pair of Baby Advent IIs in my office for about 2 years. Recently I brought them home and refurbished them. They are nice sounding speakers.

Tonight I swapped my trusty M4s out for the Baby Advent IIs in the living room bookshelves, where they sound anemic and hollow. I think part of the problem is the acoustic suspension cabinets. Those bass reflex speakers sound much better on the bookshelves.

My intention was to take the M4s downstairs and reunite them with the LF-14 subwoofer; but I don't think I can stand these Baby Advents IIs in the living room. Not enough ooomph.

I could take the Advents back to work. Ooomph is actually a bad thing in the office. The little 30 NAD amplifier drives these guys pretty nicely. Oh--I have both amps at home now--I could do a rematch of the speaker shootout that Bill and I did. That's something fun to do tonight. In many ways, it won't be a fair fight, as the newer Polks are at work and these Advents would have to compete against 1st generation M4s (better build, nicer xover, and much better tweeter). Still, that sound like a fun thing to do.

You see, the Polks are much more efficient than the Advents, so using a single amp to compare the two isn't fair--the Polks are much louder at the same volume. So I'll set up two pair of speakers with two amps, get the volume the same and switch back and forth.

I have an exciting life, don't I?

What I Am Trying To Do...

Once the schematic is available, I should be able to build a circuit board that does exactly what the deck does in REC mode. Essentially, I want it to take a line-level input to the meters and spectrum analyzer with the ability to increase or decrease the intensity of the signal (volume pot).

Again, I'll need the schematic. And I will probably need some help reading it. And then some help designing a circuit that will do what I need it to do.

WRONG!

Nope, my logic on the colored wires in the KD-D50 was WAAAAAY off. The schematic still hasn't arrived, but I thought that with only 7 wires I could do some process of elimination work. I snipped the WHITE wire (by this time I suspected it might be LEFT), and I was correct.

Another cool thing: I disconnected RED and WHITE and hooked them to line-level R/L signal. It works exactly the same! That means all the spectrum analysis stuff is in the board attached to the black wire harness. The other lines must be power.

I had a theory that the LIGHT BLUE wire didn't impact the meters--I think that's true, but it shuts down the whole deck when it gets cut.

More updates later.

BLACK = some kind of ground--the whole deck shuts down.
YELLOW/PURPLE/PINK = power.