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I couldn't resist posting one more photo of Bruce Thigpen's fan-driven infrasonic subwoofer, this time showing the drive-unit in operation. Loaded with an infinite baffle—it is in the next room—it fires into a foam-lined sub-chamber, which low-pass filters the residual fan noise, leaving just the awesome infrasonics to pressurize the room next door. Because the fan is providing the main motive power, just 30W of audio signal was required to create an spl of 115dB at 8Hz!
Like all Wilson Audio Specialties' speakers, the Series 8 redesign of the venerable WATT/Puppy combination is available in flawless, clear-coat automotive finishes. I do wonder, however, how many of the Utah company's customers choose more conservative finishes than those on display at CEDIA. Arrival of a pair of WATT/Puppy 8s in reviewer Wes Phillips' listening room is imminent. What color will they be?
I am in nerd heaven! The Royal Society has just put all of its journals online, going back to volume one in 1665. Read Robert Boyle's "Observables upon a monstrous head," Ben Franklin's kite experiments, Edmund Stone's invention of aspirin, Daines Barrington's observation of a "remarkable young musician" (Mozart), William Henry Fox's first accounts of photography, and Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA.
Holy motherlode!
This comic strip from the Perry Bible Fellowship seems to suggest that you can screw your way out of a crises. If they say so . . . .
My first year in New York, my friend Larry Bassman was stunned to learn I'd never been to an opera, so he picked up the phone and ordered two tickets to that night's performance at the Met. It was Peter Grimes, starring Jon Vickers. What a tough act to follow.
Yet, as good as it was—and you can see from the clip that it was riveting—the biggest goose bumps I ever got at the opera were from what I believe was Vickers' last performance at the Met, Parsifal,. That one shouldn't have worked at all, if you follow conventional wisdom—he was too old, his voice was growing coarse . . . .
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Jill Lapore on how she spent International Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2003. It's a good 'un, me barnacle-encrusted boobies.
My computer tech is coming over this afternoon, I wonder how I'll convey 64-bit problems in 18th Century lingo.
Kelli often catches me staring into a mirror. "Checking yourself out again?" she asks.
Honest, baby, I ain't vain. I don't know what it is. Seriously, I don't even know what I'm looking at / for half the time. I'm just looking. I've been this way forever. I remember when I was maybe four or five years old, waking up in the middle of the night, walking into the small green bathroom, closing the door behind me, standing in front of the tall, gold-trimmed mirror, and just looking. And looking.
I used to enjoy watching myself cry. Sorry if that sounds weird or…
Why you get more of a buzz from that cold beer on a hot summer's day. (News you can use!)
The theory was perfect but the patient stubbornly died. Two new books set Druin Burch a'thinking.
One of my favorite shops in downtown Santa Fe used to sell antique scientific equipment, which was pretty cool in itself, but the owner's passion was obviously for the tools of quackery, so it was filled with impressive-looking torture devices. It's a good thing I wasn't burdened by prosperity or I'd have bought him out.
Holy moly! An Aquarium Drunkard has posted an entire album's worth of outtakes from the 1962 The Freewheeling Bob Dylan sessions. That's 25 tracks—cancel work for today!
My fave? Dylan does Big Boy Cruddup's "That's Alright Mama." Let's see, that makes Elvis' cover my #3 favorite version.
Via Grow-A-Brain.