Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[TERRA Operative]

So, for the Luton Dunstable Downs hamfest, should I:

• be a seller with nothing to sell, thus avoiding a long hike back to the car with heavy equipment
• take a rickety trolley, for the long hike across fields back to the car
• be a trolley-less seller, thus discouraging myself from buyng boat anchors

• Sell some stuff, buy more stuff.
  

[tggzzz]

So, for the Luton Dunstable Downs hamfest, should I:

• be a seller with nothing to sell, thus avoiding a long hike back to the car with heavy equipment
• take a rickety trolley, for the long hike across fields back to the car
• be a trolley-less seller, thus discouraging myself from buyng boat anchors

• Sell some stuff, buy more stuff.
  

That hamfest is in the middle of a field, so

• I can't show my expensive stuff working => poor for selling
• there are many stalls with some interesting equipment => good for buying

My house is full and will become fuller with big bits of furniture before I forcibly repatriate my daughter's school revision notes, beanie babies, and winter catering equipment to my daughter.

[med6753]

So, for the Luton Dunstable Downs hamfest, should I:

• be a seller with nothing to sell, thus avoiding a long hike back to the car with heavy equipment
• take a rickety trolley, for the long hike across fields back to the car
• be a trolley-less seller, thus discouraging myself from buyng boat anchors

Assume "trolley" is some sort of what we would call a "cart".......such as a scope cart. Wheeled device used to carry stuff. Yes? No? Huh? 

[Brumby]

You are correct.

[med6753]

OK. Cool. "Trolley" over here is reserved for one of these.

[Brumby]

Now that I've watched the video, I have a better appreciation of Ken Fritz and why he did what he did.  Certainly over the top, but it would seem he had the skills, time, motivation ... and the money.

I think it's safe to say this could never be said about this system.

I'm really curious as to how it sounds - not that I will ever get the chance to find out myself.

[Peter_O]

And todays invite link is: https://discord.gg/GbHw8f8f

Not sure if you need be registered first. 

Yep. You need to.
I just tried, but run into the same registration chaos as with my first attempts.
They now claim, my e-mail were registered already. But instead of offering a log in, they force a new registration. So they added a deadlock to the old chaos.
I'll stay away. :-)

[med6753]

lots of pop corns and drink

 

there is always a bigger fish...

EDIT: Now that I finished watching it, 57 minutes and something worth every single second. Goose bumps.

Well I certainly give him an "A" for effort and probably sounds fantastic. But is it way overkill? Without a doubt but to each his own. At least I did not see nor detect any outright audio foolery or snake oil. Well....maybe a bit with that turntable. 

[med6753]

Throw back to the Bose speaker discussion. I know Bose sued Consumer's Union, publishers of Consumer's Reports Magazine, for posting a negative review for the similar reasons as was described here. "Un-natural sound that danced around the room". And Bose won the lawsuit. I don't know if any monetary damages were assessed or paid. But it simply proves that facts don't win. It's who has the most lawyers and deepest pockets. (CU runs on a shoe string budget). 

[capt bullshot]

Some early notes from the "Fun with (Ice)-TEA" dept.:

Trying to test the accuracy vs. bandwidth of the WT1600, starting with the voltage channel.
This thing has a quite impressive bandwidth / accuracy specification, so I wanted to see if I can set up some measurements to show this.
Starting with the Fluke calibrator, I've applied various DC voltages to check the basic DC accuracy. Looks well within spec.

Next thing is AC voltages. The Fluke can do from 50Hz up to 50kHz, at limited voltages (the higher the frequency, the lower the voltage). For 10V AC, covering the range from 50Hz to 50kHz it looks spot on, too.

Now for the more interesting part: I've set up the high speed amp. It can put out 50Vrms @ 1MHz, but unknown accuracy. So I'd need to measure these signals at a reasonable level of trust into my instruments. Turns out, this isn't that easy. The 34401A does a good job up to some 100kHz, and the scope shouldn't have any issues with the bandwidth at least.

So this is the setup I'm experimenting with now:



Fluke 5100B
33120A
34401A
NF 4005
RTB2004

I've got some other duties now, so stay tuned for more results tomorrow or maybe in the evening (CEST).

[tggzzz]

So, for the Luton Dunstable Downs hamfest, should I:

• be a seller with nothing to sell, thus avoiding a long hike back to the car with heavy equipment
• take a rickety trolley, for the long hike across fields back to the car
• be a trolley-less seller, thus discouraging myself from buyng boat anchors

Assume "trolley" is some sort of what we would call a "cart".......such as a scope cart. Wheeled device used to carry stuff. Yes? No? Huh? 

Yup. In this case a bit like a two-wheeled wheelbarrow without the trough.

[Neper]

Real cameras are parallel devices, as the photochemical process happens across the whole frame simultaneously.

Almost. Not quite in cameras with focal-plane shutters above their flash sync speed.

https://maisonbisson.com/post/focal-plane-shutter-distortion/

[McBryce]

Bought another one of these for some reason. No idea why, just because they are small and cute I suppose and because it cost just a handful of coins. Non-working this time (picture isn't of my device), but these are easy fixes with all jellybean parts.

McBryce.

[med6753]

Bought another one of these for some reason. No idea why, just because they are small and cute I suppose and because it cost just a handful of coins. Non-working this time (picture isn't of my device), but these are easy fixes with all jellybean parts.

McBryce.

Almost looks like a kit? Yes? No?

[McBryce]

Bought another one of these for some reason. No idea why, just because they are small and cute I suppose and because it cost just a handful of coins. Non-working this time (picture isn't of my device), but these are easy fixes with all jellybean parts.

McBryce.

Almost looks like a kit? Yes? No?

Looks like a kit, but no, they were sold only as built units. Here's a look at the insides from top and bottom. You can see what I mean by 100% Jellybean.

McBryce.

[Specmaster]

lots of pop corns and drink

 

there is always a bigger fish...

EDIT: Now that I finished watching it, 57 minutes and something worth every single second. Goose bumps.

Well, I certainly give him an "A" for effort and probably sounds fantastic. But is it way overkill? Without a doubt but to each his own. At least I did not see nor detect any outright audio foolery or snake oil. Well....maybe a bit with that turntable. 

Agreed, but I tend to  think that the speakers are also way over the top, surely if you're trying to get as close to the original as possible, then shouldn't your drivers be at approx the height as the instruments would have been? His speakers were 8ft tall FFS. Also, of course, he did rely on a lot of processor power, which is how Bose and the like get such "fantastic" one note bass response from such a small driver and enclosure.

[ch_scr]

And todays invite link is: https://discord.gg/GbHw8f8f

Not sure if you need be registered first. 

Yep. You need to.
I just tried, but run into the same registration chaos as with my first attempts.
They now claim, my e-mail were registered already. But instead of offering a log in, they force a new registration. So they added a deadlock to the old chaos.
I'll stay away. :-)

They seem very eager to make sure, they can correlate all that sweet, sweet data they collect on you. I guess, if you ask them, it's all for spam and fraud prevention 
If you don't pay for it, you're not the customer - you're the product.

[Specmaster]

Looking at the Dunstable boot sale website, it looks promising as the site is absolutely massive and if that area is full of trade stands should be some real bargains on offer as well. It is I see also spread across a few days, so does that suggest that the best bargains would be had on the last day when sellers would rather sell, then have to repack everything away?? Would be great fun if the weather holds good as well, but sadly though, I doubt that I'll be attending because I'm bursting at the seams here with gear of one sort or another, all spreading out from my box room, onto the landing, and my son's bedroom as well, plus the garage is stuffed full and even have some stereo gear in the hallway, all waiting for bench time before I can flip them. I think SWMBO would kill me if I were to bring more gear home.

I took a gamble yesterday when I got a nice Sony soundbar with a BT subwoofer for his TV and games consol, but it is all installed and working very nicely in his room and the subwoofer has been fitted into his shelf system under his computer desk so is out of sight and therefore not adding to clutter 

[TERRA Operative]

youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw

lots of pop corns and drink

 

there is always a bigger fish...

EDIT: Now that I finished watching it, 57 minutes and something worth every single second. Goose bumps.

Well, I certainly give him an "A" for effort and probably sounds fantastic. But is it way overkill? Without a doubt but to each his own. At least I did not see nor detect any outright audio foolery or snake oil. Well....maybe a bit with that turntable. 

Agreed, but I tend to  think that the speakers are also way over the top, surely if you're trying to get as close to the original as possible, then shouldn't your drivers be at approx the height as the instruments would have been? His speakers were 8ft tall FFS. Also, of course, he did rely on a lot of processor power, which is how Bose and the like get such "fantastic" one note bass response from such a small driver and enclosure.

Not to mention, there's a point where the limiting factor becomes the skill of the recording studio.....

I had Dynaudio 3-way splits and Alpine Type-X subwoofer in my car years back (and they were awesome), I could hear every breath and finger tap etc in good recordings, I could also hear every glitch and blip in bad recordings.
Good recordings sounded fantastic, bad ones sounded terrible.

[tggzzz]

Looking at the Dunstable boot sale website, it looks promising as the site is absolutely massive and if that area is full of trade stands should be some real bargains on offer as well. It is I see also spread across a few days, so does that suggest that the best bargains would be had on the last day when sellers would rather sell, then have to repack everything away?? Would be great fun if the weather holds good as well, but sadly though, I doubt that I'll be attending because I'm bursting at the seams here with gear of one sort or another, all spreading out from my box room, onto the landing, and my son's bedroom as well, plus the garage is stuffed full and even have some stereo gear in the hallway, all waiting for bench time before I can flip them. I think SWMBO would kill me if I were to bring more gear home.

It is a large field with plenty of variety and choice - and a few bargains. It is the largest hamfest I've been to, but I haven't been to the national hamfest nor any further north.

Being in a field, you are at the mercy of the weather (traders bring canopies, others don't), and there is no power so you can't see things working.

It is a one-day event, AFAIK.

[Zucca]

youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw

lots of pop corns and drink

 

there is always a bigger fish...

EDIT: Now that I finished watching it, 57 minutes and something worth every single second. Goose bumps.

Well, I certainly give him an "A" for effort and probably sounds fantastic. But is it way overkill? Without a doubt but to each his own. At least I did not see nor detect any outright audio foolery or snake oil. Well....maybe a bit with that turntable. 

Agreed, but I tend to  think that the speakers are also way over the top, surely if you're trying to get as close to the original as possible, then shouldn't your drivers be at approx the height as the instruments would have been? His speakers were 8ft tall FFS. Also, of course, he did rely on a lot of processor power, which is how Bose and the like get such "fantastic" one note bass response from such a small driver and enclosure.

Not to mention, there's a point where the limiting factor becomes the skill of the recording studio.....

I had Dynaudio 3-way splits and Alpine Type-X subwoofer in my car years back (and they were awesome), I could hear every breath and finger tap etc in good recordings, I could also hear every glitch and blip in bad recordings.
Good recordings sounded fantastic, bad ones sounded terrible.

I wonder with all that money how many time he could hire a live orchestra to play in that room. But you need to organize, make some calls and wait for them to show up.
For Ken Fritz not an option, his orchestra is and will be always there in his home for him a few buttons away together with his favorite wine.

I also wonder if and how his hears degraded by getting old.

Beside the technical stuff what amazed me the most was:

1) the almost absence audiophool language (transparent, light, deep, cristal, crisp, tender, ... you know)
2) the importance of the now, enjoy now this moment, and to ponder to stop developing projects

[capt bullshot]

First results from todays "Fun with (Ice-) TEA dept.":

So I decided to use the 33120A and the amplifier as the signal source, and the RTB2004, HP34401A as meters for some plausibility checks.
The RTB2004 has a pretty nice feature, one can get its live screen onto a computer just by your favourite browser. The WT1600 has an VGA output that was captured with a grabber device. Finally the 34401A ouput was captured through a simple serial terminal.
This way I have all the interesting readings side by side on the computer screen.



I've started measuring at 100Hz, and stopped at 1.5MHz.
Each step I took a screenshot, like these:




Using human eye powered OCR, I've transferred the interesting measurements into a simple plain text file and made a small graph using gnuplot:




Below maybe 200kHz, I've used the 34401A reading to adjust the 33120A output level, above that the cycle RMS reading from the scope. The scope was connected through a standard 10:1 probe, whose gain error at low frequency (100Hz) was adjusted by fine tuning the scale factor. One can see, the probe isn't perfectly compensated, it drops at 1kHz and peaks at 100kHz a bit.
At the second screen shot (taken at 1.5MHz), one can see the amplifier is at its limits and starts distorting the waveform.
The WT1600 current channel shows 0mA at 100Hz, then 9.24mA at 1.5MHz - this is channel to channel crosstalk due to the high frequency.

[mnementh]

That’s absolutely brilliant and straight to the point. I had that argument with someone back at university. You can’t add stuff that wasn’t there when it was mastered.

Keeping it relatively on topic, should own two more HP items today. Keep ‘em crossed for me.

So this morning sucks. Two trains then a rail replacement bus. On the third and final train now and the shitter is bust 

So... typical Monday morning commute, then...? 

mnem
"Honey, where are my paaaants?"
"Back at Waterloo Station, sweetie. The turnstile ate them again."

[mnementh]

I wonder with all that money how many time he could hire a live orchestra to play in that room. But you need to organize, make some calls and wait for them to show up.
For Ken Fritz not an option, his orchestra is and will be always there in his home for him a few buttons away together with his favorite wine.

I also wonder if and how his hears degraded by getting old. Beside the technical stuff what amazed me the most was:

1) the almost absence audiophool language (transparent, light, deep, crystal, crisp, tender, ... you know)
2) the importance of the now, enjoy now this moment, and to ponder to stop developing projects

I wanna know what he listened to his music on for 16 years while he was building this monstrosity. 

mnem

[capt bullshot]

Next measurement:
Fluke 5101B as source, 10V from DC to 50kHz:





HP34401A behaves as expected, with some dip in the frequency response at low frequencies. Best results around 1kHz.
WT1600 also behaves as expected, especially no (or very little) difference from DC to 50Hz. This is where the all digital signal processing and RMS calculation can show its capabilities. Basically, if you get your DC offset stable, you can adjust the measurement channel using a stable DC reference and it'll show accurate RMS values up to the bandwidth limits of the analog front end.
Interestingly, one can see the values drop until 10kHz, then showing a jump to higher values at 20kHz.