“Live at the Jazz Bakery” from Sara Gazarek has been on my short list for a long time.
This performance of “And So It Goes,,,” is absolutely amazing. I challenge you not to fall in love…
Amplifier Update
Finally received the case & wiring for the amplifier. Assembly went well considering the parts came from three different countries (The Nederland, Denmark & China)
I forgot the jumper to switch it from 220v to 110v at first but luckily that didn’t break anything. I wrapped two sets of wires with electrical tape and copper tape. I’ll do the same for the rest of the wiring this weekend. I was too eager to listen to it. And yes, it sounds fantastic.
Anything from Adieu tristesse · Zazie, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Sara Gazarek, Bobo Stenson Trio and Caro Emerald sounds amazing. I’ll post more of that later…
Snow
Morning workout, yesterday, shoveling all that snow…
12v trigger
My amplifier case & wire are still stuck in Memphis, TN at the FedEx hub 🙁
Anyway, I’ve noticed that the power amplifier itself doesn’t include a 12v trigger so I decided to make one.
I bought that relay but it comes with no documentation.
Apparently when I power 9v on the DC+ and DC- there’s a tiny red LED that lights up. Then if I short the IN with the DC+ another tiny green light turns on and I hear the relay.
The ohmmeter does show a change on the other side of the board so that must be how you set it up 🙂
We did not cover that in pastry school so what do I know.
Before the snow…
Nice bike ride around City Park before the evening snow. It was good to get out of the house. I still hate seeing people wearing masks. I hate every part of it. I don’t know what’s more depressing really; witnessing this ugly dehumanization of individuals or being stuck at home…
Anyway, this is pretty amazing:
Wandavision is weird
I’m one or two episodes behind but at this point I don’t really expect that show to make sense. Ever. It’s just weird and it’s gonna stay weird.
Anyway, I made an executive decision this week. I’m going to buy a little Ethereum once a week on Monday. Not too much, something like $128 a week (it’s a good number) and just treat this as a saving account of some sort. I started yesterday and oh, look at that! It’s already up 🙂
This is in addition to the 0.08 ETH I’m currently mining every month.
Croissants
I knew using the bread machine to make croissants would be a terrible idea! 🙂
As expected, the dough was super elastic and difficult to work with.
Extensibility; yes, Elasticity? No good.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 10am and time for my second breakfast.
Pork shoulder roast for winter weather
I mixed some soften butter with the usual mix (salt, black pepper, sage, onion & garlic powder) and some extra garlic for good measure, covered that 3.2lb pork shoulder with the mix, and let it sit in the fridge all day yesterday. I’m slow roasting it today for a few hours. Considering the weather temperature for today it should help keep the house warm.
Croissants but not croissants
I made croissant dough in the bread machine but then instead of actually making croissants I just shaped the dough, let it rise for 45min and baked it as bread.
Now I have good bread 🙂
Recipe
500g – Bread flour
11g – Salt
12g – Yeast
50g – Sugar
300g – Half & Half
1 – Egg
+ teaspoon of diastatic malt
Colorado Winter
It’s a holiday weekend (Washington’s Birthday) so, of course…
It might actually be warmer at the top of the rocky mountains 🙂
Update: The forecast shows -21 for Saturday night (no risk of fever there) and -22 for Sunday.
I’ll be home playing Tetris, drinking hot chocolate.
LG 32″ 4K monitor
The LG 32″ 4K monitor is on sale and I’ve been meaning to buy one for a while so…
It’s not the greatest out there most likely but for $326 that’s a great value.
I’ll check the color calibration when I have more time but it looks pretty good right out of the box.
A nice addition to my home office.
Matcha White Chocolate Truffles
Yes, it is possible to buy an entire box of Matcha White Chocolate LINDOR Truffles.
There are 800 pieces in there. 22 pounds of chocolate for $99. What an amazing world we live in.
Are you committed enough to your dreams? 😉
Jambon Beurre
Beurre d’Isigny & Jambon Madrange
Power Amplifier
I’m building a power amplifier.
The amplifier board (below) is coming from Denmark
The power supply (above) is coming from The Netherland
The casing and connectors are coming from China…hopefully.
It’s an international collaboration I guess. Definitely the most expensive DIY project I’ve ever done. The amplifier board alone is $900. It’s an Eval 1 Purifi Eigentakt board. The same that can be found in the newest NAD C298 power amplifier. The spec sheet is just incredible in all aspects so I’m hoping the end result will be a nice improvement to my setup.
Home Theater Update
Eventually the home theater will be in the basement but for now I’m setting it up in my living room.
I just bought two more speakers so now my setup is as follow:
Amplifier Denon x4700h running an 11.1 setup
2 Polk Audio Lsim707 in the front
4 Polk Audio Ti200 for the Surround Fronts and Backs
4 Polk Audio Ti100 for the Surround Height Fronts and Backs
1 Polk Audio Cs10 for the Center
1 old Sub Woofer (I’ll upgrade that at some point)
and of course the phenomenal 65 inch 4K “Picture on Glass” E9 OLED LG TV.
I’ve just upgraded the wiring; 14 gauge for everything but the 4 “smaller” height speakers (which for now are on the floor) for which I’m using 16 gauge. I’ll be building some 72″ tall speaker stands for the height soon.
I’m using the “older” Pioneer amplifier to drive the front speakers in bi-amp mode for now but I’ll be building a power amplifier soon to do that work.
I can’t overstate this; 11 channels is the way. It’s a world beyond the classic 5.1 or 7.1. It’s like being at the theater…but way better. The sound of Dinah Madani’s shot gun during the scene of the firefight in Punisher E08S01 against special ops forces is utterly insane. I had rounds of ammos flying in all direction in the living room 🙂