i suppose we, DIY audio enthusiasts, will one time or another, injure themselves inadvertently. whether it is a jolt from residual voltage in capacitors of a 1kv supply, or the soldering iron dropping on the foot with the hot tip facing downwards, or running the file onto your hand while filing some metal piece... it's my turn today... again... i was trying to drill 28mm holes with a hole saw at robert's place when it happened. the hole saw was stuck, causing the 3mm aluminum piece to be caught in my wedding band as i was holding onto the work piece with my left hand. the drill press then pulled my left arm around the drill bit. my instant reaction was to hold on to the work piece with my left hand already at the 12 o'clock position. luckily i was able to hit the stop button with my right arm... i had to use a pair of pilers to compress the ring back into shape in order to remove it so that i can wash the wound. the skin of my finger was sliced through. i guess it was deep enough that i could not feel any pain when washing it. robert passed me some anti-septic and helped me handiplast the finger. chong helped me with all the 4 octal holes of the moskido instead. hmm... i wonder if i can do the chassis work tomorrow with only one hand. pic of the wound here if you are interested.

seems like an inseparable part of life... one day it works fine, and the other it does not. worse, you have no idea what went wrong. i was trying to hook up my 5687 preamp to the rest of the system that i intend to partner with, but somehow, the power supply of the preamp was giving me problems... i have a switch capable of warming up the heaters first, and then switching in the B+ on the second toggle. somehow, at the first toggle, the rectifier let out a glow, meaning that something is wrong... powering it off, i measured 120vdc from the capacitors. this does not discharge even when i switched in the rest of the circuit. maybe one of my crocodile clips on my temporary power supply are touching each other. don't have the mood to troubleshoot after i spent around 10 minutes to figure it out. i then took apart the supply and started work on laying out the components on a hammond chassis that i had on hand. think i will retry the psu when i have the time, but this round, i will make use of my 22uF GE 97F oil capacitors. i have 4 of these which were used in paralleled configuration on my previous build of the DRD amplifier.

well... one reason could be cost... perhaps?? for example the wavac sh-833 monoblock amplifier would cost a cool USD350k in july 2004. ok... it might be technically close to impossible to clone that amp, but it might be possible to clone the wavac he-833 monoblock amplifier, similiar to the bigger wavac, but minus the elaborate power supply and at a much cheaper retail of USD47k... still no peanuts... or could be peanuts to some. at least the DIY route will enable some enthusiasts to achieve the 833 single-ended sound in their rooms without breaking the bank for it. one other reason is to be able to build equipment that uses lesser used or commercially unavailable components or design topology. in the case of tube amplifiers, there are tubes aplenty that are not used in everyday commercial offerings from big name audio companies... why is that so? well... i would think that they are not keen to sail in uncharted waters. my motivation for DIY audio is the satisfaction of being able to build something that, when made to work, will bring joy to myself. also, i will not be able to sell these hand-crafted creations as easily and thereby curbing my cravings to repeatedly "upgrade" my audio chain. this is not to say that i will not build more amplifiers if i already have one though... maybe my place will end up being a storage for DIY audio equipment... even in DIY, there seem to be an "accepted" norm to do things... take a preamp based on the 5687 double section indirectly heated triode that i am building right now. most people run this tube at a higher plate and bias voltage that i do. my design requires them to be operated at just 115v, -4v bias, producing 25mA per tube. this puts the tube in one of its' most linear regions as far as the datasheet shows. why then, would other DIYers run them at a much inferior curve? is it because of the herd mentality? because they have tried and tested all possible operation points and proved to themselves that the generally accepted parameters are indeed the best? or is it just because of conformance to the general rule? why would you bother to DIY if it is not because of the ability to freely reign in design?

once upon a time, i was interested in everything new. technology, consumer devices, internet and all it's failings, etc... then came work, then came life... then it became how 24hours is portioned for all these, while still allocating some time to leisure and R&R. so, now i'm looking for something that will enable me to post the nice pics of Lucas without having to maintain the website that i created for that very purpose. it's tedious work updating all those pics... just imagine one roll of pics from my EOS350D every outing to some where of interest... not to mention the casual shots with my Minolta Dimage X... and those quickie shots with the mobile phone. at the same time, i would like to publish stuff on my DIY audio projects, which could be of interest to fellow DIYers. let's see how this new means allow me to do the above in an easy fashion. it's like outsourcing... now i don't want to code my website, but i want to focus on content, so i turn to this to handle all the time consuming coding... somehow, not sure if it is due to my safari browser, i only see spell check and add image on the top of the bar. even the CTRL thingies does not work. i still have to include HTML syntax as i type this... WTF?