| Magnet wire re-visited [message #34952] |
Thu, 31 January 2002 15:40  |
BillEpstein
Messages: 886
Registered: May 2009
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Illuminati (2nd Degree) |
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The Radio Shack magnet wire I reported as sounding dreadful was the green 26 ga. in a twisted pair, each pair being used as a single cable. One pair +, the other -. Made the Pi's sound like a cheap clock radio.
All the while, however, being stubborn, I had another set of the 26 ga. hooked up to the HT setup. It's just TV, right?
This time, although I made another twisted pair, I used a single strand for each signal, + and -. They've been Cooking with Emeril and exploring the Alpha Quadrant for about 150 hours.
Today, I put them in the music system, named, in Memory of Marty Feldman, Eye-gor.
I was puttering and so half-listened to some Natalie Merchant (she only half pronounces the words, anyway) and then some Loreena Mckennitt and that was pretty involving, if insipid,and so I sat down and really listened to a few cuts of "Wrecking Ball".
Now I'm hearing something new, thinks I. Her voice, and Neil's are there in a different way and the instruments, guitar, bass and drums are just a little more layered and separated in space from each other. And the carefully produced (thanks Daniel) sounds are just that much more in the room. "Going back to Harlan" is simply a masterpiece and I was drawn into the music like never before.
I'm on a roll and pull out "Long Black Veil", "the foggy dew".Sinead may be on the edge for a lot of people, but her interpretations of traditional Irish songs are non-pareil. This is a song that always shines on the Pi's but again, it was like hearing it for the first time. Her voice seemed a touch more plaintive, the drums sounding for "the British Huns with their long-range guns" a little more martial and simply more substance. Isn't it strange what "the world will little note or long remember"?
So much for the women. I recall a recent thread on the Asylum about someone getting a power conditioner, I think, and finally the percussion on "Clapton Unplugged" is back where it belongs instead in front of the guitars. So I fire it up. Well there isn't much percussion but what there is is well back. But who cares! Eric is making beautiful music and his sidemen are so clearly heard as interweaving rythym and acoustic bass, once again in layer upon layer that is discrete and integrated at once. There's a dichotomy!
I hit "open" just before the eight thousandth playing of "Layla" and put on "Riding With the King", B.B. King, that is. Cut 11: "Hold on I'm Coming", my all time favorite Elmore James classic and I'm up and dancing! Twirl the volume knobs on the Foreplay a bit and can't stand still.
By this time I figure the neighbors have maybe had enough and dinner's ready to come out of the oven. I put away the Pop and get out something a bit more refined: Haydn, The London Symphony's", Philips442 611-2. Not the Fifty Greatest. I go right to the end of disc 2 and play, what else, Symphony in E Flat, the 'Drum Roll Symphony'. Which of course begins with a drum roll and throughout the first movement is a startling precursor of Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique". Check it out.
Anyway, I get up from the table and start it over again because that PP < F drum roll and sombre intro is just so, I dunno, real. The featured low timbred instruments, especially Bassoon and contra-Bassoon juxtaposed against the flute is right up there with the woodwind duet in the third movement of Beethoven's Pastorale. Maybe better. More drama. And the violin solo that takes over from there and carrys the piece the rest of the way. I'm sitting in Severance Hall during Thursday afternoon rehearsals.
So the mood was right, the Foreplay, Paramours and Pi's were cookin'. Where do the little 26 ga. $3 cables come in?
They didn't do any harm!
And I never enjoyed this system with the Mapleshade as much as I did today. However, as Poindexter always writes:
WTFDIK
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| Atta Boy, Till! Keep em Coming! [message #34953 is a reply to message #34952] |
Thu, 31 January 2002 17:29  |
Garland
Messages: 269
Registered: May 2009
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Grand Master |
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...The reviews, that is! I can't wait to get my Pi's running. Why, when the rest of the world is in a recesion does my business take off and keep me working 7 days a week?! I guess I should be thankful but I just have to get the music cookin'.
I am curious: how long are your magnet wire cables and your interconnects? I am thinking of placing the Paramours a foot or two from the Pi's and running longer interconnects from the Foreplay. Also, what's the latest on the woofer Zobel concerns?Garland
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| Till: Don't "twist" the magnet wire (it sucks this way:-)... [message #34982 is a reply to message #34952] |
Mon, 04 February 2002 19:46 |
DeKay
Messages: 1
Registered: May 2009
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Esquire |
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use separate runs. Even the OTA sounds lame when twisted. This is a whole new game (forget all of the other DIY designs as well as their do's and don'ts). Instead work with different materials to keep the wires equidistant from each other if you want to improve upon separate runs. Grass/straw is the best that I have come up with so far, a trimmed edge from a 20' roll of raffia wallcovering from the Philippines (don't ask, it was free).
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